


Nightfall

by yaodai



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Nawaki and his team survived their first mission, meanwhile their sensei faces a whole lot of shinobi politics, now they are about to face a war, orochimaru continues to hoard children like there's no tomorrow, there might not be, yes you know who their sensei is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-04-16 07:52:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14160174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yaodai/pseuds/yaodai
Summary: Senju Nawaki survived, so the world shifted even so slightly.





	1. D-Rank

Nightfall

(Quietly Crept In And Changed Us All)

 

Chapter 1: D-Rank

  


There was a sudden pull at the back of his shirt, strong enough that the neckline rose up and bit mercilessly into the skin, stealing his breath away in one, sharp motion.  
Before Nawaki could even tell what really was going on, he was pulled off the ground and then send flying backwards, ramming with his back into something - someone - with enough force to continue moving even afterwards, with another body wrapped around him.  
He still felt the impact of finally stopping on a tree, though the hit was cushioned by whoever was miserable enough to be behind him.

"Ow, get off!" he recognized Kiwa's - his female teammate - voice as the girl pushed him away.

"You're jabbing me with your elbow!" Susumu protested weakly. He was the last member of their freshly made genin unit and sounded like the air was squeezed out of him.

Oh, Nawaki thought. So it was a double hit-

An explosion pushed him right back into his teammates and the tree behind, the sudden rupture of fire powerful enough to blind and the wave of heat that came after felt like it scolded skin right off his face.  
His whole body felt raw and battered, chest was tight and convulsing, fighting for the air that was cut off so suddenly a few moments ago.

Nawaki coughed, inhaling dust and smoke along with air that was hot enough that it burned, making him cough even more, choking on saliva and bile.  
The sound that seemed to be coming from inside of Nawaki's skull wasn't anything like ringing. Instead it was a painfully loud, high-pitched sound that just wasn't ending, making impossible to hear anything else.  
He blinked, but his eyes felt like they were covered with a dark film and he barely could see anything. And what he actually could see, was colored green for some odd reasons.

The dust was swirling above the ground, clouds and swirls of ashes, obscuring their field of vision to about five feet, the smell of smoke was so strong Nawaki felt like he was about to choke once more. His mouth tasted like ash.

Kiwa was warm against his back, shifting and using him as a ladder to climb back on her feet, fingers biting into his arms with enough force to leave bruises.  
She was also screaming something.

Nawaki turned his head, because he could see some things with the corner of his eyes and tried to concentrate on her lips.

"Enemy contact!" Move, dammit, enemy contact-!"

Oh right! And also: oh fuck! because there was an explosion where there were supposed to be no enemy nins at all and they were just genin and-!

No! He was a ninja and ninja don't panic like that just because something didn't go like it was supposed to!  
Kiwa was right, what they needed to do was to regroup and fight a commanding officer, preferably their own, because with one of the jonins they surely would be safe...

"Any idea where they came from?" Nawaki asked, probably speaking way too loud, but he couldn't help it; the ringing wasn't gone yet, even if it was finally weakened to the point he was able to hear something.

"No idea!" Kiwa furiously looked around, trying to see something through the dust clouds. "We're still close home. We should be able to get to our ground!"

Nawaki stared at her - covered in soot and dirt, sweaty and with eyes wide open - trying to comprehend what was going on. Her knee was scratched and blood slowly travelled down her calf, but she appeared to not even notice this.

"But... sensei?" he rasped, tearing his eyes away from the red, red line. "Where is he?"

Because the only person he could think of was their sensei, the one person smart enough to make sense of it all.  
Since Nawaki remembered, Orochimaru always knew the answer, no matter how strange and difficult the question was, always keep cool head no matter how strange or scary the situation was.  
Only he wasn't anywhere to be seen.

Bile rose in Nawaki's throat.

"What is going on? Where is he?"

"What you can't understand when I tell you we have enemy contact?!" Kiwa growled at him and grabbed his shirt, baring teeth like a rabid animal. "If you have a death wish leave me out of it!"

Nawaki swallowed, taken aback, unable to find words or to catch breath.

"I would assume we should move and regroup and not fight among ourselves," Susumu said, calmly walking - forcing his way - between them, as if the forceful grip of Kiwa was nothing.

His voice was almost as calm as ever. Almost.

Kiwa, forced to let go of him, stepped away with a small, angry growl and set her eyes on the fire behind them.

Nawaki looked back too, at the blazing fire.  
It wasn't as furious as few moments ago, but everything was still obscured by the smoke, even if he squinted.

"I think I saw something moving!" he gasped suddenly. "Did you guys saw something moving?!"

"Not us," Kiwa grunted. "We should go."

Nawaki slowly nodded, because he just couldn’t figure out what else they were supposed to do.

He rushed into the forest after Kiwa and Susumu, hoping the rich foliage along with the heavy smoke spilling around like in in a cup of water, would be enough to hide them from the enemy eyes.

Enemy.

Nawaki tried to swallow, but all he managed to do was a painful twist of the muscles inside of his throat, enough to make his eyes water.  
They became an official Genin team yesterday. They were simply expected to deliver a storage scroll to the chunin unit patrolling the territories on the west side of the village, not even getting that far beyond the borders itself.

It was a D-Rank delivery mission and sister kissed him on the forehead and wished him good luck and told him that she would leave some money for his dinner on the counter, so he could go out with his new team and celebrate, but now there were hungry flames roaring behind him, while he rushed forward, forward, forward, thin twigs and sharp leaves smacking him in the face and cutting the skin on his arms and cheeks.

Kiwa suddenly stopped.

Nawaki had no choice but to jump up and twist himself mid-air, hitting the thick trunk with both of his feet, chakra flaring around the soles of his feet. The bark cracked under him and burst open, but it slowed him down enough to land next to his teammates.

In gravely silence, Susumu drew his sword, while Kiwa made a single step back, her frame shaking, while fingers of her left hand already found a hilt of a kunai.

“No!” she gasped, her voice shaky and broken “Fuck, no! No!”

There was a man standing just a few feet away, Genjutsu slowly dispelling around him as if the jutsu was purposefully mocking them. He was big and had broad shoulders and a headband that proved he was not a Konoha nin at all.  
He stepped forward, hungry eyes wide open, teeth bared in a terrifying smile.

Twigs cracked, crushed under the weight of his armored sandals, the dirt-red fabric of his clothes looked like it was splattered with blood.

It probably was, Nawaki’s mind reflected, while he was using all of his self-control to try and not shake like a leaf while reaching for the shuriken.

The stranger - enemy, enemy, enemy - opened his mouth to mock them, but the words never came.  
His mouth froze for a second, before his neck bend in an awkward way and tipped forward, way too far for it to be natural.

The head fall on the ground, the impact dulled by the grass and meaty leaves, and rolled to the side, marking it’s path with wide, bright line of blood. His body followed only as the head stopped on some stone, mouth still locked in a vicious smile, baring bloodied now teeth. First the knees bend, then it tipped forward, before it finally, gracelessly, fell, spraying the foliage with oily, red droplets.

Nawaki felt as if all the air left his lungs along with tension, because the figure standing behind the man was amazingly, fantastically familiar. The dark greens and blues of Konoha outfit was enough to make him feel safe again, but there was even more - only one person dared to wear their long hair loose like that, only one person had the skin chalk-white like that.

“Sensei!”

Orochimaru slowly turned around.

Nawaki simply stare, as both terror and guilt froze him on the spot once again, knees barely managing to keep him upwards.  
There was lots of blood on him, dropping down on the ground from the slim, white fingers of one of his hands, uselessly hanging from his shoulder.  
The black scorching marks were clearly visible on the vest he was wearing. The burn marks reached higher up, painting white neck and the jawbone angry red.  

"Orochimaru-" he choked on words.

"Now then," the man smiled, like everything was fine. "This was a bit unexpected, though you managed to get the right idea."

"Um, sir, the enemy?" Kiwa asked nervously brushing through her short hair.

"Currently occupied, though I don't believe it's going to take them too long," Orochimaru explained. "We should get moving."

"Um," Kiwa said again, looking at the bleeding arm.

She was right, of course, it would mark their trail and make things for the enemy very, very easy. They learned about it in the Academy, but back then it all was just a story on paper, a theoretical situation with clear answers and bonus points for being extra clever.

This, this was way to real. Eerie at the same time, with details so vivid it was hard to process them all.  
The forest smelled like pine and rotting leaves, charcoal burner and copper and ten of thousands things more. The leaves hissed furiously all around them, fluttering in the waves of too hot air andthe blood was dripping on the ground, each drop shining in a hypnotic fashion.

"Right," Orochimaru followed her eyes, one eyebrow raised, corner of his lips bent in a way that was almost smile.

A metal clicked softly as he pulled out his sword and the blade shone, reflecting fire behind them.

"What are you-" Nawaki gasped, already knowing the answer, despite his dazed mind, despite the world being too much for him to bare.

"There's no time for playing medic, I'm afraid," Orochimaru said, looking completely at peace with what he was about to do.

Orochimaru was a ninjutsu specialist. To use ninjutsu, a person needed not only the chakra and fine control over it, but also two hands to form the signs, Nawaki dully thought as the edge of the sword touched the - not white but red and black and horrible - skin.

The blade went through the flesh with disturbing ease, cutting through it like a scythe would go through the grass.

Nawaki tried not to choke when he heard a nauseating sound of a limb hitting the ground. Blood followed almost instantly, dripping turned into a wet splat.

"Now I would require one of you to cast a fire type jutsu," Orochimaru said, voice still clear, but now also noticeably stained.

Nawaki could just stare in horror, his brain refusing to accept just what was going on and what this crazy man was asking for.  
The fingers of the hand on the ground were twitching and spasming, like the limb wanted to dig through the forest floor. The nailpolish still looked neat, applied just yesterday, cracked only on the index finger. The deep, dark blue was sticking out now even more, almost like bits of charcoal thrown into the mess of green, red and white. 

Kiwa, as always lacking any sort of doubt when it came to survival, quickly formed the right hand signs.  
The flame she produced wasn't big; actually it looked fairly miserable, just a flicker of light in comparison to the ongoing chaos behind them.  
Still, it was enough to warm up the blade to desirable temperature.

It was also plain horrific, how methodical and cold Orochimaru was during the process of cauterizing his own wounds.  
At least now he was acting more like a real human. At least a little bit. Because anyone else would be probably on the knees, howling in pain.  
The worst thing about the whole situation: it wasn't fast. It seemed to last a whole eternity, filled with sizzling sound of red-hot metal sealing the flesh.

Kiwa had to use a fire jutsu once more before everything was done.

"Well then," Orochimaru said, his voice raspier than before almost hoarse. His breathing is heavier and his face visibly stained with pain, with drops of sweat travelling down the high cheekbones. Despite it all, there's also a twisted smile. "We have wasted enough time here. Follow me... ducklings."

Nawaki blinks, because there was a clearly noticeable pause before the ridiculous nickname that appeared out of seemingly nowhere.  
It was disturbing, because it was almost like their teacher was trying to remember their names only to come out with nothing.  
He swallows, Kiwa's words ringing inside his head.

"We are just meat," she was telling him over and over again, without mercy. "We're nobodies that could be send to die at anytime, shields for the clan kids that are supposed to learn from our deaths."

Back then it all sounded ridiculous. It wasn't something that would happen in Konoha, because in Konoha all people were precious, all the missions were appointed with great care!  
But now it became a little more real and Nawaki closed his eyes, trying to force it out of his mind.  

They travel, never directly heading back home, always looping around, always taking turns. There were false trails to make and traps set to make it look more real.  
Then they were finally on their home ground. Or whatever the training ground 44 was for their team.  
Nawaki never thought he would feel relief at the sight of the impossible high trees, with branches and vines hanging low, littered with poisonous snakes and giant leeches just waiting to drop down and prey.  
And yet, he did, barely able to catch his breath, bruised and battered.

  



	2. Training Ground #44

Chapter 2: Training Ground #44

 

Nawaki leaned against the dark, moss-covered bark and breathed out.

It felt almost like the tree he was leaning against was breathing along with him, which wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen.  
The so called Forest of Death was on the northside of Konoha and was a natural barrier protecting the village.  
Saturated in the natural chakra almost to the brim, it became a dangerous place; all the creatures that dared to call the place home changed over the generations, constantly growing bigger, stronger, smarter.  
There were tigers creeping around, each of them the size of a house and they were not the biggest animals living in the forest. Hundreds of different kind of bugs and insects, beasts of all kinds and sizes, most of them preying on each other.

No civilian dared to enter this place and the area was restricted even for the people among the shinobi rank - no genin was allowed to enter it without supervision.  
It really wasn't a place Nawaki would ever consider to be safe, but with the enemy ninja chasing them, this natural trap was a heaven-send gift.  
Not that they were safe here; for all the beasts they looked just as much like food as the enemy.

They just had the advantage of knowing what to expect.

"I don't like this," Kiwa muttered. It was so quiet, Nawaki barely managed to catch it.

"It's better than being out there in the open," Susumu murmured back.

"I know. I just..." she eyed the silhouette of Orochimaru. "Sitting duck is not going to help us. The longer we wait, the more time they have to learn how to move around."

"You think they will try and cut our way back home?" Susumu asked.

"Think?" Kiwa snorted. "I'm pretty sure they're already at it."

Nawaki swallowed and stole another glance at Orochimaru.  
He was standing with his back to them, keeping watch while giving them time to catch a breath.  
It felt wrong, because he was the one who should be resting, not them, they were just tired not heavily wounded but... But Orochimaru kept on acting like nothing serious had happened and probably needed to stay away from them just for a little while, at least if he wanted to keep pretending.

Nawaki couldn't even imagine how much it hurt: all he knew were bruises and scraped knees which wasn't even close to what had happened.  
He swallowed.  
Was it their fault? What if they were paying more attention to their surroundings, what if they moved more carefully? Would it make things different somehow?   
Nawaki wasn't even sure which answer he hoped to be true:  
One would make it all his fault and the one would more than imply that there is some malicious higher power that decided to hurt Orochimaru just because.

"Come on," Susumu brushed fingers against his shoulder. "Sensei gave us a signal to move."

Nawaki nodded and followed, hoping that  his little startled jump wasn't too noticeable. Susumu startled him and a shinobi who gets surprised so easy... it wasn't telling anything good about his abilities.

"Don't use chakra," Orochimaru warned them suddenly, his voice quiet and steady and only a little bit more raspy than usual.

"They have a sensor?" Kiwa narrowed her eyes immediately.

"No, we will make sure to lead our enemy in the territory where a wild breed of kikaichū is nested," Orochimaru explained. "This time of the year their territory is usually off the limits because the larvae

"...wouldn't it be smarter to avoid it entirely?" Nawaki shuddered.

He heard stories about the kikaichū and what they were able to do to a seasoned ninja in just a few moments; everyone did.  
The Hyuga clan members were elegant and able to see everything, the people from the Uchiha clan were able to bring the perfect reports home and copy any ninjutsu they managed to set their Sharingan on but the Aburame...  
Nobody was able to escape the Aburame.

"The larvae are blind and can't detect heat very well either," Orochimaru smiled. "Just be careful and it will be fine."

"The enemy doesn't know this, so they would continue to move using chakra to catch up with us," Susumu nodded.

It was odd, how easily his teammate was willing to simply accept walking through the place filled with the insects that were able to suck all the chakra out of a man in mere seconds.  
Kiwa at least had the decency to look a bit green on the face.

"If we have to split for whatever reason... Nawaki, I want you to lead the group for the snake hunting grounds and stay there."

Nawaki nodded. Snakes, he could deal with, at least somewhat.  
It was a part of the Forest of Death he was at least familiar with: it was Orochimaru's favorite spot and the man didn't exactly care it wasn't a space for little kids that few times when sister asked him to help with babysitting.

Splitting up with Orochimaru would be the worst thing to happen, but Nawaki was glad that there was at least a clear order. And orders were good, orders were making the path clear, orders prevented from running around in panic and dying a miserable death.

Usually bugs were trying to somehow mask their presence; they made themselves to look like leaves or flowers, they were wearing the color of dirt or dried foliage, they even took shapes that could hide them well in the plain sight.  
Kikaichū were the rare exception form the rule: they were not bothering with any sort of a camouflage, fully aware that they were probably the most dangerous thing in the whole Forest of Death.

The adult insects were buzzing around or sitting on the leaves and branches, shiny like small, dark stones, while the thick, white cocoons were everywhere, many of them burst open. A gooey, translucent substance was slowly leaking down, onto the ground, creating a sticky trap for whatever wasn't careful enough.

And then, there was the ground itself, looking almost like it was boiling with the larvae climbing over each other, the roots of the threes, moving, twitching, waiting for the prey.

“Shit,” Kiwa swallowed. “I was expecting a lot, but this is insane!”

“Remember to not use your chakra, even if you're forced to run,” Orochimaru warned them, glancing behind for a short moment.

“This is really safe, right?” Nawaki couldn't help himself, but looked down. The ground was almost completely covered with the young kikaichū, moving, swarming, nauseating.

“The animals tend to unleash chakra when they are startled,” Orochimaru explained. “Stepping right into the trap created by the natural predator usually is enough to produce such reaction.”

“Shinobi have much better control over their chakra than a mere deer,” Susumu nodded. He managed to sound almost as calm as he usually did, but his face was pastry- pale and shining with sweat.

Nawaki licked his lips and made the first step.

It was as awful as he imagined it to be. The insects were everywhere in an instant; he could feel them moving against his skin, wiggling between the toes and climbing up his sandal, popping under the sole.  
At least the excruciating pain of having chakra sucked out wasn't there. Yet. Nawaki was all too aware that one mistake, a split of a second of returning to the well trained habit of using the chakra to figure out more about the surrounding and he was done for.

Every next step was as awful as the first one, the whole experience excruciatingly slow; they couldn't even jog, so it wasn't all that surprising when Kiwa tensed up.

“Enemy at six and five,” she announced, fighting to keep herself from stuttering. “Estimated time of entering the shuriken range thirty seconds.”

“Keep going,” Orochimaru ordered.

Nawaki grabbed a kunai and forced himself to continue moving forward, even if his brain was screaming at him to jump away and find cover, to get higher up, where he wouldn't be so painfully visible.

“Twenty,” Kiwa announced, her voice hoarse.

“Keep going.”

Nawaki hoped his hands weren't so sweaty the knife handle would slip in the most critical moment. They felt sweaty.

“Enemy in sight on three, ten seconds until in range!”

“Brace yourself,” was the only warning they’ve got, the only order that came.

There was a one of a kind hissing sound, the one that was impossible to mistake for anything else, the one that ended with a sudden thump - right when the blade dig deep into the tree just a few steps away.  
Nawaki bit his lip.  
His lungs felt like they were on fire, his chest hurt, legs were weak from both the effort and sheer terror.

He tried to concentrate on one of the lessons from the Academy, the one about the importance of breathing correctly and how it all connected with the exercise, but the words were turning into a meaningless buzz inside his head and all he could do, was trying to fight away the overwhelming need to use chakra to escape, right now.  
They were in range, with backs turned to the enemy, running away at a snail-pace and they were going to die, die, die-

“Exploding tag!” Kiwa shouted.

While his brain froze in panic, his body was going through the motions - legs still moving forward, back curling, hands shooting up and covering his head and ears.

Nawaki wasn’t sure which came first - the roaring noise of the tag going off or the hot air hitting his back and pushing, almost throwing him off balance, almost knocking him down.  
The flames cracked behind him, hungrily swallowing whatever were on their way, immediately filling the air with thick smoke and odd, wheezing and cracking noises, popping out one after another like someone just set on fire a whole box of firecrackers-

Kikaichū, Nawaki realized.  
That weird sound, it was the insects burning, boiling inside their thick, dark exoskeletons until it all just popped open, like deep fried rice or corn seeds.

He risked opening his eyes for a moment, just to orientate himself in the surroundings and his steps faltered.   
There was a black wall emerging in front of him.

It was so high it made the sky look dark. It was constantly in motion, it was buzzing furiously and it was moving forward.

“Oh, shi-!” he gasped, managing to shut his eyes and mouth just in the right moment.

The kikaichū slammed into him like a wave during a storm, overwhelming and powerful and everywhere and the buzz - coming from every direction at once, repeated by hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands winds at once - was deafening in its strength.  
Was this how death sounded like? Was this… it?

But no, he wasn’t using chakra, he tried so hard, he really wasn’t using any even when every single muscle in his body was screaming from sheer effort, it just wasn’t fair-

The wave brushed against his skin, the exoskeletons slick and cold in touch, and so, so many of them, the wings hitting him over and over, shark and unpleasant but not enough to cut and passed him by.

What, he thought, his brain still slugging, unable to go through the motion fast enough to connect the facts.

The kikaichū were heading for where the explosion was, throwing themselves right into the still buzzing flames and the ground - the white larvae - crawled right towards the fire too, suddenly alive and moving, throwing themselves right at the fiery death because-  
Because the exploding tag was unleashing chakra when the seal broke and chakra was the only thing the larvae could find!

The mistake on the enemy part created a thick, back wall between them and Nawaki’s team and it was stupidly risky, but also brilliant and nightmarish and then there was screaming coming from behind, somehow breaking through the thunderous buzzing, because the kikaichū finally found a target that was edible-

He pushed the thoughts away, because wasting such a chance would be beyond stupid.

It felt like an eternity and then some, but they finally managed to leave the kikaichū territory behind.  
Letting the chakra seep into muscles and joints was like a soothing balm and a highly caffeinated soldier pill all at once, the energy suddenly back there, the pain mostly gone.   
Nawaki took a deep breath, through his mouth, and then wiped his face, suddenly aware how wet it was. His nose was clogged too, and he probably looked not like a ninja at all, with face dripping with tears and snot, but he really, truly didn’t care about it at all.

Alive!

Somehow, by some miracle, they were still alive and heading home and this nightmare was all over, with the enemy occupied by the scariest insects that ever existed…!  
Nawaki turned his head, to make sure that he wasn’t-

Susumu was there, a few feet away from him, clothes ruffed and dirty, knees and sleeves covered in soth and goo, face pale and flushed at the same time, with a slightly haunted look in his eyes.  
Kiwa was behind him, with dirt smeared on her face in a way that spoke of wiping it off really quickly with a soth covered hand, just like he did and probably for the exact same reason too.

Orochimaru suddenly stopped and then stepped back, knees already bend and hand ready to reach for a kunai... or move up to his wound, to brush fingers against the blood and then grab the scroll secured to his hip.  
Nawaki felt like the ground under his feet suddenly disappeared. Ice filled his veins, while his brain stopped, getting stuck on one single word.

No.

No, no, no, no, this wasn't happening, this has no right to be happening, this wasn't fair, this wasn't fair at all, they were running for so long, they were fighting for their lives for so long, just for this to happen?

Denying wasn't making the situation any less real. A team of shinobi was waiting for them, partially hidden among the trees.  
Not one of them was wearing a hitai-ate.

They could be ANBU, Nawaki thought, swallowing. They could be  ANBU on some secret mission and that's why they were not wearing their headbands.  
But...

But it was making painfully more sense if they were from another village, one that wasn't even a part of this war and  didn't want anyone to find out that they were involved.  
He gazed quickly towards Kiwa. He didn't even want to do so, his eyes just moved on their own, while his brain once more was replaying her words over and over again.

She said they were going to die because they were on team with him, one of the last members of the Senju clan. Back then, still surrounded by the thick, safe walls of the Academy building, it seemed almost silly. Like she was being overdramatic or just plain silly.  
Back then it was all surreal, a thing mentioned in a textbook but not something that happened for real, not something that could happen to him, because Nawaki was supposed to become an awesome shinobi and the next Hokage and-

The cold facts were staring right in his face, all the things mentioned in the textbooks he oh so carefully memorized suddenly were terrifyingly real.  
The most reasonable tactic for when a skirmish with a hostile shinobi team was to identify a potential bloodline limit user; they were usually the most dangerous, but their abilities were way better known than the trick a clanless shinobi hid in his sleeve.

Nawaki forced himself to look back at the enemy, hoping that he looked like a clanless mutt enough that they will not pay too much attention to him.  
Or at the very least - that Kiwa and Susumu would not follow the books. Because they said the team was supposed to protect the they all instructed the team to protect its most valuable asset at all cost.

The enemy nin were partially covered by some sort of a genjutsu. Even squinting, it was impossible to spot any detail that could help identify them. They just… were there, tall and dark, and dangerous but the rest was distorted to the point of making him dizzy. The one on the left, moved, shifting his stance, twigs scratching against each other and cracking under the weight - he was painfully real then - and pointed.

“Senju,” the voice was also odd and distorted, but it was impossible to not understand him.

“Shit!” Nawaki heard Kiwa curse, while his own mind was buzzing with too many things at once. The enemy was well trained, most possibly ANBU and very well informed, because the Senju clan member were not like the Uchiha or Inuzuka - they had no visible traits that could help to identify them on the spot. To recognize a freshly made genin…

The shuriken zipped through the air, sharp edges shining in the light as the enemy nin rushed forward, the genjutsu mirage fluttering around them as they moved.

“Katon!” Kiwa shouted, throwing a kunai and then going through the seals as quickly as she could, not caring if they were well-shaped or not.

A stream of fire shot from their mouth, thin but long, eating through the air lightning-quick, following the kunai and finally licking the handle, where white piece of paper was messily wrapped-  
An explosion blossomed in fiery blaze, red-hot and loud, forcing the enemy to stop in their track or be burned, the mirage around them shining like a glitter as the illusion broke under the strain.

Only for them to see clearly one of the shinobi take unnaturally deep breath, the one that seemed to bend the laws of nature and twist human shape into something it was not and Nawaki knew, just knew that they will be cut to shreds if they will get caught in the wind that was going to come in just a split of a second.  
They needed a barrier, they needed it now and he didn't knew the signs for the Mud Wall, but he remembered all too well how his sister could punch the ground and cause an earthquake.

It was easy; just let the chakra flow through his arm - bubbling, burning through the skin, painful and bright - and then hit, screaming, forcing it all out all at once.  
The Earth shuddered and as something inside the palm of his hand snapped, the ground opened too, with roots breaking with loud cracks and snapping in all directions like vicious whips. Bits and pieces of the ground crumbled and fell down, but there still was a thick wall of Earth just in time-

To hit him in the face with fistful of dust and rocks, blinding.  
Nawaki twisted around, to protect himself from the chunks of ground, shielding eyes as much as he could, when he felt it. A presence right behind him, an intent to spill blood, hungry, angry, right there with a glistering blade in hand, towering over him.

He reached out for his own blade, already knowing that it was too late, but dammit, dammit if he just let them!  
Instead of pain, there was a sharp clang of metal hitting metal. The sparks were still in the air when Nawaki turned around, shining like stars and dying as quickly.

Susumu was standing between him and the enemy nin, face strained with the effort and sweaty, but his hands were steady as he held the mans blade on his own, not letting him go through, not stepping away.  
The man tsked and narrowed his eyes and broke the contact, jumping out of the way.

Losing the resistance so suddenly made Susumu gasp quietly, but he managed to keep his balance, feet shifting even so slightly on the ground, kunai still up, ready to defend them.

"How's your hand?" he asked, not rising looking back.

"It's..." Nawaki closed his mouth. The lie was half-way out of his throat, but that would be just stupid. His hand wasn't fine and he used his dominant hand like a complete idiot too. "I'll manage."

He knew how to throw shuriken with both of his hands, sister made sure he was able to hit the mark when it was needed. he was just a bit slower...  
What difference it could make anyway?  
They were so out of their league it was sheer luck that they were still alive.  
There were sounds of a battle coming from the side. With a corner of his eye Nawaki could see Orochimaru flashing through motions, the blade of Kusanagi reflecting the flickering light of flames, accompanying the vicious kicks.

Nawaki grit his teeth.  
Orochimaru hated taijutsu and it was not a well hidden secret. It wasn't a secret at all, because the man openly spoke what he thought of it, how inferior he found it compared to ninjutsu and now, now it was the only thing left-

Their enemy brought hands up to his chest and Nawaki grasped at the shuriken as the first seal was formed and threw them.  
He tried to spread them wide, to make it difficult to dodge, to force the man to reach for his own blade, to break his hands apart for long enough to negate whatever he was going to do.  
The man merely stepped aside and bend his back, fingers dancing together, creating a second seal and then another one.

Nawaki cursed under his breath, trying hard to not blink, because he could miss a sign and these were important even if the jutsu was unfamiliar, Orochimaru said so and he was always right-

"Wind!" Nawaki shouted as the man started taking what seemed to be a breath too deep to be normal in an unpleasantly familiar way.

But he couldn't punch the ground again,  not without completely crippling himself and he couldn't channel chakra so neatly with his other, so he needed something else.

"Trees!" he shouted, hoping it would be enough and jumping behind the nearest trunk. It was wide and powerful and huge and it still shook under the powerful push of wind. Big chunks of bark tore off and miserably flapped in the air before they finally broke off and shot forward, just to break into a bits when meeting a trunk of another tree.

"Give up already!" the man taunted them, voice dripping with snide. "You know you can't win this!"

Nawaki ignored him and looked around instead. Susumu took the cover just a few meters away from him. He looked shook but otherwise just fine. Further away, he could see Orochimaru, his fight with a whole group of enemies still going on.

He furrowed his brow.  
Kiwa. where was Kiwa?  
Nawaki looked the other way, while unpleasant things were already filling his head. Did she managed to dodge that? Did she get hurt? Or she did something else, something that wouldn't exactly surprise him, but...

There!

She was barely noticeable, lying on the ground several metres away from where the enemy was standing the last time Nawaki saw him, almost completely covered in leaves and dirt. Somehow, Kiwa managed to notice him looking at her and stared right back, eyes big and tense. then slowly, she looked at the enemy nin and finally at Orochimaru, just to look back at Nawaki, eyes clearly demanding something from him.  
He didn't need to think to hard what that something was; her hands were already pressed together.

"I hate this," he muttered and jumped out of his hiding spot, right into the trap.

"Got you now, brat!" the man laughed and took a deep breath.

Nawaki didn't want to risk glancing behind him, but the clang of a weapon told him to move a step to the right. He just hoped that Orochimaru wasn't paying attention to the whole battlefield just like he usually did, because-

The same moment the man used the wind jutsu, Kiwa shot up to her knees and spat fire in his direction.  
He didn't even have the time to react as the fire licked against his skin, wrapping itself around him and then suddenly exploded further, feeding on the wind jutsu, blossoming into a huge ball of furious flames, one that seemed to be swallowing the whole world all at once.

Nawaki eyes widened, body moving while brain already knowing that it was too big, that he wasn't fast enough. He braced himself for pain, raising both arms to at least protect his face and nose, too aware that betting his lungs burned would kill him much faster than anything else he was going to feel in just a second.

Something suddenly wrapped itself around his waist and pulled him, hard enough to push all the air out of him. It felt like he was squeezed, crushed and it smelled like blood and burned flesh.  
Nawaki opened his eyes with a gasp, just to see Orochimaru sending one of the enemies straight into the fire with a kick vicious enough Tsunade would be proud.

They turned in the mid-air and while he was spared seeing the man disappearing in fire, he still could hear the blood-chilling scream very well. It didn’t even sound human.  
And then Nawaki wasn’t even paying attention to the death anymore, because he could see Kiwa with her back to the tree and no way of escaping, while the one shinobi she burned was moving towards him, kunai in hand,  black-red burn marks covering the upper part of his back and the back of his head.

She said she was going to die and she was really going to. She knew it, he could see it in her eyes, on her face, the sheer terror burned itself deep into nawaki’s mind even if he saw it for less than split of a second-

A shuriken suddenly shot into the air, right at the enemy, lightning fast and glinting deadly. Nawaki had no idea where it came from, because Orochimaru couldn’t toss it, not without his second hand, but it didn’t matter, because it forced the man to turn back and to defend himself.

Susumu used the window of opportunity and replaced her with the chunk of the ground Nawaki broke of earlier. It dropped on the ground at the same moment she did.

Nawaki almost did so too, when Orochimaru let go of him. He widened his stance and forced himself to look up, to make sense of the situation they were in now. It wasn’t a nice one. There were more enemies than them, they all were grown men, they were not missing limbs or pathetically retching on the ground.

The fire seemed to be surrounding the battleground, spreading further and further, hungrily swallowing the branches heavy with leaves, bushes and grass, filling the air with smoke and soot.  
Orochimaru once again reached for the scroll, his face calm and collected despite everything that had happened.

And then a flashbang came from the side.

Nawaki shrieked, suddenly blinded. He forced himself to swallow the scream and curled himself into a ball, trying to be as small target as it was possible, while his mind was trying to make sense of what just had happened.  
Their enemies didn’t throw it. And even if they did, they wouldn’t throw it right in the middle of the battlefield, blinding everyone. So who did that?

A single, strong voice boomed over the carnage and blazing fire made Nawaki feel weak, but for the first time, it was weakness coming from relief. He looked up, blinking away the tears, trying to see through the dark spots floating before his eyes.

"Have no fear, for the mighty Jiraiya is here!"

He was really here! Towering over all of them like some sort of a giant, white hair moving wildly in the air, among him seem to be even bigger than he already was.

"Uncle Raiya!" Nawaki heard himself gasping, not really sure why even he needed to say his name out loud. Perhaps it was because he needed to make sure it was real, it was really happening, that he wasn't simply imagining a miraculous rescue.

Jiraiya made a step forward and the earth came to live, blossoming with sharp, teeth of hard rock, tearing into the flesh of their enemies with ease.  
The enemy nin jumped away, trying to evade the jutsu, only to be caught with two powerful balls of fire coming from the side. There were more Konoha shinobi around them, hidden away in the leaves or openly standing sideways on the tree trunks, or upside down on the branches, all of them armed to the teeth, all of them with their eyes on the prey.

Nawaki was sure, in any other circumstances, the screams would be mind-numbing. They didn't even sound human right now, the noise too animal-like, too primeval to really  come out of a human.  
But it was hours of being chased, of death following his every step, being right behind the corner and wearing the face of people that were burning, so he felt nothing but satisfaction and he was sure it will make him uneasy later on.

The chaos of the battle died along with their enemies.  
Nawaki wasn't sure if his ears were ringing because of the sudden silence, or because his hearing got damaged. With a hand gesture Jiraiya send his team away, probably to make sure that there were no intruders on Konoha territory.  
Jiraiya then turned around, taking  in the sight of them, keen dark eyes making note of every single detail. Almost every.

"Damn, this was quite something, wasn't it, kids?" he laughed at them. "What was that supposed to be for you anyway? Your first C-rank?"

"A D-Rank, actually," Orochimaru noted dryly.

"And you've landed in this mess, damn, Orochi, that some rotten luck here!"

"Luck, you say?"

Jiraiya huffed and furrowed his eyebrows, as a flash of something went through his face.   
Then the grin was right back on his face.

"Still, wasn't expecting you to have a trouble, even if you're stuck herding a bunch of kids!"

"My, life is sure surprising, isn't it?" Orochimaru mused slightly and then turned slightly.

The happy expression on Jiraiya's face died instantly, smile drained from his face along with the blood. His mouth moved, but no sound came forward. He reached out, but stopped himself in the middle of the gesture, uncertain what to do.

Nawaki bit his lower lip. he was absolutely lost in all of this too and his brain felt like someone filled the inside of his head with stuffing out of plush toys. His ears were still ringing, too.

Jiraiya's eyes narrowed as he made a decision.  
In a few, quick steps he was right next to  Orochimaru, towering over the other jonin like a giant.

"How much blood have you lost?" he asked.

"It's not that bad," Orochimaru replied softly.

"Wha-What," Jiraiya choked on words and Nawaki found himself sharing the feeling.

Orochimaru was plain crazy, to act like nothing had happened, to not bend in half from pain, to not feel sheer horror with every ounce of his being, because of all the things the wound meant.

"You are fucking ridiculous, you know that?!" Jiraiya barked and shook his head and then wrapped arm around Orochimaru's waist. "I was about to tell you to take the kids back home, but now I'm not doing that."

"I'm not an-"Orochimaru started, but recognized what he was about to say as the worst word choice possible. "I can manage a little jog."

"You're an idiot and you're still bleeding," Jiraiya pointed out dryly.

His other arm snaked its way all the way down to Orochimaru's knees. In one swift motion, Jiraiya picked the other man up and Nawaki winced.  
Orochimaru wasn't just that sort of a person you could poke under the ribs and expect no consequences; quite the opposite.  
Manhandling sensei like that... Nawaki saw enough times it never ended nice. The last time Jiraiya tried to pull something like that off as a joke left him with bruises and Orochimaru who was fuming in anger even after two weeks.  
He fully expected Orochimaru at the very least hiss at him to stop acting like a fool.  
Heck, he was sure Orochimaru wouldn't let anyone just pick him up like that; he was always making it look so easy to avoid just anything...

"Oh, this is ridiculous," Orochimaru merely sighed and rested his head against Jiraiya's shoulder.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fight kept growing on me. Like, it was growing a lot, but damn, it was fun to write.  
> The Aburame clan is bloody scary and up there is why.  
> Yeah, when watching MHA I keep thinking about Jiraiya. Tell me he wouldn't do the superhero entrance if given a chance, I dare you.
> 
> Not using honorifics, because I find it silly, I'm not writing in Japanese, I'm writing in English.  
> Still using the word "sensei", because "teacher" would be awkward as hell, "master" doesn't exactly fit the situation and "mister Orochimaru" is like asking for death.


	3. Yesterday And Today

Chapter 3: Yesterday And Today

 

Just two days ago Nawaki was walking down this very same street, giddy with enthusiasm and flushed with happiness, a brand-new hitai-ate tightly secured on his forehead.  
He waited for the moment he would be finally acknowledged as a genin with deep longing, imagining time after time meeting his teammates and forming unbreakable bond with them. They would have the most adventurous carrier and defeat all sorts of enemies!

It was a weird thing, entering the Academy knowing it was his very last time inside. But the jealous glances of other kids as he passed them by were just so satisfying!  
With a wide grin on his face that he just couldn't make disappear no matter how hard he tried to look like a serious ninja, Nawaki entered the classroom and sat down in his usual place - close to the front on the left side of the room, so he could sneak a peek outside when he needed to rest a moment from listening.

It was louder than usually, because everyone was excited, everyone needed to share something; a small groups were giggling together, there was something rowdy going in the back of the classroom, while the girls were sitting together around one desk, pretty much having a picnic.  
Probably the Akimichi twins felt like celebrating and brought all sorts of foods, inviting their friends to join them, so they could giggle together.

The teacher entered the room, not giving Nawaki the chance to join one of the groups and to share what was on his mind, but it was okay. The sooner the man starts talking the sooner they all will be split into teams!

Most of the kids immediately straightened up and waited, but as always, there were a few exceptions: the Aburame girl was trying to make her bugs jump through a paper hoop, one of the girls that sat by the Akimichi sisters was still shamelessly shuffling food into her mouth.

Miss Shiranui wasn't teaching them for too long - up until three months ago, she was serving on the battlefield for the most time. She was specializing in throwing weapons and poisons and was covering with them the first one and the basics of the second - mostly what to do when already poisoned.

Plump with pregnancy, she had still lightning-fast reflexes and an eagle eye and never shied from reprimanding them harshly and at this point everyone just knew better than to get on her bad side.

"Today you're going to be put on teams," she started immediately, a thin file in her hands.  "You might not find yourself satisfied with who is going to be on your genin team, but don't waste time on arguing with me: I had no input on your placement other than reporting on your progress."

Nawaki swallowed. He was trying very hard since the very start, but he rarely managed to get to the very top - that place usually belonged to the creepy Aburame girl, who never felt like socializing with the rest of the class, to the point Nawaki wasn't sure if he knew her first name or his brain just put something together to fill the blank place.

"Whatever is in these files, is on you," Shiranui continued mercilessly. "The teams were created in a way to even out your skills. If there's a personal conflict - you are shinobi now. Keep your emotions in check. As it is from now on - your teammates are your lifeline. Act accordingly."

Nawaki couldn't help himself but immediately started imagining all sorts of dark scenarios - what if his team would hate him? What if he's going to end up as the weakest? Was there even any way to get out of a genin team?

The Akimichi twins ended up on a different teams and Nawaki breathed out with relief when Aburame - he learned her name was Tanna - ended up with almost equally stuck-up Uchiha kid and a poor civilian-born boy who was at the very end of the ranking.

"Senju Nawaki," hearing his own name made him jump. Shiranui raised an eyebrow at him, clearly knowing that his mind was wandering instead of paying attention. "Your teammates are Takenaka Susumu and Nakano Kiwa. Together you will be serving under Jonin Orochimaru as Team  until deemed good enough to be promoted to Chunin."

She continued to read the list - separating the Hyuga set of twins. The one with bandaged forehead exhaled more deeply than usual for whatever reason - while Nawaki was trying to figure out how he felt about his placement.

Takenaka was always... sort of there. Quiet and hanging out with the civilian kids, so Nawaki never had a chance to learn about him much - his friends and their friends and siblings, all of them said it was silly to go and try befriend a civilian kid. That most of them doesn't pass the genin exam anyway, so why bother? And it wasn't like they were eager to cross that line either.

Calm, collected, not joining in on the goofing out with the other kids, but not looking down on them either. Fairly average at everything... and that was pretty much all Nawaki knew about Takenaka.  
It was rather miserable, considering he was learning in the same classroom how to gather information for months.

Nawaki glanced at the boy; he had hair almost completely shaved off, almond-shaped eyes with sort of girl-ish eyelashes and clothes that would fit much more a worker than a shinobi. He took the placement with a short nod, face expression not changing at all.

Shame, Nawaki thought. He would like to know what his new teammate was thinking. On the other hand the last member of their newfound genin team was much, much easier to read.

Nakano Kiwa - still with a bit of rice in the corner of her mouth - looked like she wanted to be anywhere but here.

She was one of the many children that belonged to a clan-like merchant group that traveled the Land of Fire and beyond. Her name - born on a border - told everything that there was to know about it. And about her.  
Kiwa was a loner, pretty much an outsider with a family of travelers rather than Konoha citizens.

Up until a few months ago she was a very average student - never missed a lesson, but never aced anything either. Then it suddenly changed, as if she woke up one day with determination to become the best kunoichi she could. Or something like that.  
She passed the exams with very high marks, but it cost her dearly - even now there were dark shadows under her eyes and she lost enough weight for it to make her favorite clothes look baggy, but the grim determination on her face never faded.  
Nawaki found her kind of scary, though he was so not going to admit that. Ever.

When their team meet for the first time - officially, at the designated place - Kiwa took a glance around the training ground, then her eyes zeroed on Nawaki.  
And then she laughed. It was an utterly unpleasant kind of laughter, the one that comes from some dark, dark places inside, cold and bitter.

"I'm going to die," she said in the middle of chuckling, with hand brushing along her face. "I'm going to fucking die anyway!"

Nawaki had no idea what he was even supposed to do in a situation like that. He hadn't even talked to her before and was absolutely confused with the sudden fixation on death.  
He decided to keep his mouth shut and hoped that Orochimaru would show up soon and do something.

"I'm certain there's no reason for such dark thoughts," Susumu noted softly.

"Then you clearly don't have either eyes or brain," she mercilessly cut in. "You are a nobody, just like me."

"And how this explains anything?" Susumu asked tilting his head to the side. Loose, brown hair followed the movement.

"This," Kiwa pointed straight at Nawaki. "Is a Senju kid. The Senju kid. He's the one that's supposed to live and prosper, we're just meat."

"Hey!" Nawaki protested. His cheeks burned like a fire and his stomach felt twisted and heavy. "Don't say things like that! Konoha is not leaving people to the wolves!"

"This is war," Kiwa stated coldly. "People die. Only our death would be shrugged off, while people are going to work hard and keeping you alive."

"Oh?" Nawaki jumped despite the fact he knew this soft, raspy voice well. Orochimaru, as always, walked seemingly out of nowhere, unnoticed and with eyes gleaming with curiosity.

"Are you going to accept that fate?"

Nawaki wasn't the only one who jumped when the Snake Sannin showed up. Both Kiwa and Susumu instantly straightened up, tense and obviously intimidated, staring up at him.

"N-no," Kiwa stuttered, then clenched her fists in determination. "No!"

Orochimaru merely hummed

"So... what now?" Nawaki asked after the silence started making him uncomfortable. "There... should be some sort of a test, right?"

"A test?" Susumu inquired, shifting his head even so slightly, eyes clearly interested.

"Yeah," Nawaki nodded. "Sister told me that the jonin is supposed to test the team if they're really ready to serve the village or just managed to memorize textbook very well."

Kiwa tsked angrily and crossed her hand on her chest. It was tight enough to betray that it was meant for comfort rather than a gesture of stubbornness.

So, Nawaki thought. She cared after all.

"You are aware that secrets are usually kept for a reason?" Orochimaru asked with a baffled smile.

Nawaki blinked, then gasped and covered his mouth with both of his hands when he realized what Orochimaru was alluding to.

And oh shit if it was a secret kept by the entire shinobi force for a reason or maybe even because they were ordered to, then him blurting out what tsunade told him was going to bring horrible, horrible set of troubles on both of their heads.

"Please, oh please forget that you heard that!"

"This doesn't matter anyway," Orochimaru coldly stated - he definitely was not going to forget anytime soon about this blunter. "We're at war and Konoha needs all the new shinobi academy is able to produce."

"So... we really are genin? Just like that?"

"Just like that," Orochimaru repeated after him.

It was... good, he supposed, that there was no test. Getting back to the Academy, after finally passing, after getting the shiny new headband? That would be painful.  
Nawaki decided he should be happy, not disappointed.

“Tomorrow morning you are to gather at the gates,” Orochimaru said. “Then we will head out for your first mission. Do not be late.”

Two days ago Nawaki jumped enthusiastically and asked all sorts of questions, excited and happy and ten thousands things more.

Then yesterday happened.

 

xxx

 

The mission was deemed a failure.

Nawaki bit the inside of his cheeks, feeling awfully hot, as the blood rushed up his face and ears, coloring them bright red and betraying his emotions for all to see.  
He failed his very first mission and it will be marked in his record, for all to see. No matter what he will do later on, no matter how powerful he will become, the mark will be forever there. He felt shame.

Then there was that other feeling, boiling down in his stomach, twisting his guts and filling mouth with acidic taste.  
Because this mission was anything but a D-Rank, but his team was still punished for not completing it. Like they would stood any chance against so many enemies, so many adults with years of experience behind their belts.

The Hokage looks at them with pity, crow marks around his eyes deepened by the expression were making him look older than he really was.  
He was sitting behind a sturdy, wooden table, covered in papers. A map of the Elemental Countries was peeking from under all the documents, an edge slightly bend; it was bigger than the wooden surface it was lying on and way more detailed than the ones they were studying in the Academy.

Concentrating at naming every little thing on the Hokage desk to keep his temper in check; while the old man would let some things slide now and then, this definitely wasn't one of these times. They were not alone.  
And it was much, much easier to just stare at a tea cup, pipe and dozens of paper pages than to raise his eyes up, to look at the people staring them down.  
Nawaki wasn't Susumu, who had the mysterious ability to always keep his face neutral or Kiwa, who didn't care much in the first place.

"This mission was more than a simple failure," Councilman Danzo Shimura stated, his walking stick tapping on the wooden boards slightly, catching the attention of everyone in the room. "It cost Konoha dearly. The team patrolling our borders was not delivered the needed resources was only a part of it."

He and the Hokage were the first generation of shinobi fully trained in the village instead of by the clan or a trusted tutors, but while the Third was appreciating the slow changes - Tsunade was calling it progress and it was hard to not agree with her - Danzo openly longed for the past, where even using your clan name among the strangest was seen as an overly naive thing to do.  
Nawaki heard that he was crippled sometime in the midst of the first war between the Hidden Villages, but used his keen mind to help Konoha grow into its current strength. He was able to see straight through people, to notice the very worst part of them and then to use it. Nawaki hoped that the man would lend them a hand, since his and Orochimaru's situation was so similar to his own. However those first words of his were like a bucket of ice-cold water.

"What do you want to say?" The Hokage asked, turning his head slightly, so he could look at the man. A few grey strands in his hair reflected the sunlight coming from the window behind the desk.

"I am saying that we have lost a Jonin and a very promising one."

"Funny," Orochimaru said softly, a small smile on his face. "I don't remember dying."

The doctor - Yakushi Reo - was angry about him walking around, Nawaki remembered the rant clearly. It was oddly similar to what Tsunade's would've said, only without censoring all of the curse words.  
He said that Orochimaru was supposed to be still in bed, still in the hospital, that the wound was barely healed and the blood loss would still severely affect him.  
Despite all that, somehow Orochimaru managed to look pristine.

The now uneven, damaged hair was carefully brushed and kept together with an expensive looking hairpin, shining with thin as paper petals of pink-ish stone or maybe glass, while the rest of it was loosely falling down his backs, sliding along the shapes of pretty flowers covering the fabric of the expensive kimono with sleeves long and loose enough to completely hide the fact Orochimaru was missing a limb.  
Even his white skin was spotless, despite the fact that the ugly, red marks were stillt climbing up his neck this very morning. It couldn't be a genjutsu, because he was supposed to be chakra exhausted. Risking life just to cover a few bruises wasn't a sensible thing to do.

Shimura narrowed his single eye, glaring at Orochimaru  with an expression Nawaki couldn't name. It was a weird mix of a calculating one and something else.

"And how, pray tell, are you imagining staying in an active service?" Shimura asked. He sounded stern, he almost sounded nice as if he was concerned, but there was an acidic undertone to his words. "Let me remind you. You are registered as a front line fighter and a ninjutsu specialist. As you are now, you are unable to form the most basic hand signs."

"What are you trying to say?" the Hokage asked carefully.

Nawaki closed his hands in fists, with enough force for fingernails to bit into his skin. Wasn't it obvious enough?

"I am saying that your pupil no longer passes any requirements we demand from our most elite shinobi," Shimura mercilessly continued. "I feel for your loss, my friend, but we are at war. We need shinobi capable to fight, not people to fill papers."

"You are telling me to demote shinobi for losing an arm in the line of duty," the Hokage slowly stated.

"We are at war," Shimura stated in a gravely serioustone. "There were enemy shinobi right at our walls and our best asset is... unavailable. The situation is dire and we cannot let our sentiments get better of us."

"Still, demoting anyone would raise questions and lower the morale," the Hokage hummed.

He was actually considering it, he was thinking about what he could get out of stabbing his own student in the back right when Orochimaru needed him the most.

Nawaki couldn't stand it, the unfairness of the situation, the way they were treated like tools instead of people.

This was not what he imagined when he was thinking about being Hokage, that wasn't how the world was supposed to work!

"What about the children?" Orochimaru asked, seemingly unaffected by the way the conversation was heading. Even his voice was as light as it was at the very beginning. "It sounds like you don't have a Jonin to spare."

"They will join other teams, the openings certainly exists," Shimura stated matter of factly, like the decision was already made.

"You can't do this!" Nawaki screamed, before he even realized his traitorous mouth were open. "That's unfair!"

"Being a shinobi is not fair, child," Shimura hissed through his teeth. "All I can't do right now is to see any sort of a discipline."

"Now then, you can hardly expect the children to learn the ropes only after one day," the Hokage pointed out, his face relaxing a little. "I don't want to disband this team so quickly. I already can see a budding loyalty and what would Konoha be, if not for the teamwork of all the shinobi?"

"That's very naive of you, old friend."

"It is called trust, you should try it sometime," The Hokage pointed out dryly.

"And you should not hope for the best outcome of every situation," Shimura bit right back. "Especially when it is going to end up with deaths that could be easily avoided."

Nawaki grit his teeth. If not for Orochimaru, for his sacrifice, they would be dead. And this… this man dared to stand there and talk as if it didn't mean anything, as if getting hurt protecting them was some sort of a crime. It was so not fair!  
He was starting to feel sick. What this man was talking about was again everything that he believed in, against everything Konoha was supposed to be, like he had his very own interpretation of the Will of Fire, a vile and cold one and Nawaki really hoped that if he’s going to embarrass himself and gets sick, he's going to at least hit the right pair of sandals.

"Face it, not being able to perform ninjutsu means that you won't be able to teach them properly," Shimura mercilessly continued, turning slightly so he was now looking at Orochimaru. "This team you put such great hopes into, it's going to be a complete failure, without a chance to even climbing to the proper chunin level."

"Oh?" Orochimaru hummed sweetly. "Well then, I suppose you wouldn't mind us proving you wrong? Since you already decided us to be worthless and all."

"You are challenging me?"

"What if I am?" Orochimaru chuckled. "You are not going to lose anything of importance."

The Hokage coughed.

"You were always a clever one... but are you certain you can do it?"

"You can't be serious!" Shimura spat.

"I'm curious," the Hokage corrected. "I can't give you much time. Six months and then you have to prove that you are on a jonin level."

"You can't possibly let him and his team idle around for half a year! Even in favoritism, there are lines you're not supposed to cross!"

The Hokage sighed.

"Three," he finally said. "And you and your team will be ready for field missions out of the village. Six and your team is either chunin level or is going to join other teams."

Nawaki swallowed.

The Hokage was lenient towards them, he  was giving them a chance, but at the same time...  
The amount of time was like blink of an eye. Half a year for basically learning all over again everything Orochimaru managed to achieve? This was impossible, even more than the three months they were given.

Still.  
A chance was a chance and he was going to do anything to pass it, just to rub it in Shimura's nasty face.

"Thank you very much, Lord Hokage!" he bend his back. "We will not disappoint you!"

With a corner of his eye Nawaki could see as Susumu followed his example and also bowed. Then Kiwa was doing the same on his other side, tense and stiff.

“I assume we're done then?” Shimura asked, not bothering to mash the distaste in his voice.

Facing the floor Nawaki couldn't see much besides the floorboards, but he could see as the man passed him by. Close enough to make him uncomfortable, without making a single sound despite using the walking stick with made the unpleasant feeling even stronger.  
There was a creak - a soft blow of the wind against the skin told Nawaki that the doors behind them were now open.

“I would hate to stop you,” Shimura said . “After all you have lots to learn.”

“Councilman Danzo is right,” the Hokage stated. “Go and surprise me.”

“Thank you for this chance!” Nawaki deepened the bow before he finally straitened up, hoping that he looked determined not desperate.

The other man was still by the doors, clearly impatient to see them gone.

At least the decision was already made, Nawaki thought. Because otherwise Danzo would do anything in his might to manipulate the situation even further.

"You could've been great," Shimura murmured as Orochimaru was passing him by. "What a shame."

Orochimaru hummed with a slight smile.

"Oh, but aren't I?" he asked sweetly, clearly taunting the Councilman.

There was a... moment.   
A split of a second that happened right after that exchange of taunts, one that came before Orochimaru made a step forward, but when his head was already turned.  
Nawaki wouldn't notice it, if not for the fact that he was following right after his teacher, impatient to get out of this room as soon as possible, adrenaline still rushing through his veins.

Shimura already turned around deeming the conversation to be over, glaring at the Hokage - the man definitely had opinions and couldn't wait to share them - when Orochimaru glanced in his direction with the very corner of his eye.

It should've been a completely normal expression, but it was not.  
There was an unnatural, metallic shine to the iris, with the retina so needle thin it was barely visible and yet terrifying in the way it appeared to swallow it all at once.  
It was a look filled with hunger for something dark, it was filled with bone-deep darkness and something even more chilling.

Nawaki found himself choking on his own breath, his legs swaying because all the strength suddenly escaped his knees, turning them into jello.

Then it all was gone, literally in the blink of an eye.  
His sensei was radiating calmness just like through all the time they've spend in the Hokage's office, yellow eyes were warm and looking down at him.

"Come," Orochimaru said softly, sweetly.

So Nawaki nodded and followed, too startled to think straight.

Was it just a trick of the light? Was it his imagination turning against him?  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should be doing/writing so many other things, but I'm still very hyped about this one. 
> 
> Here and there a familiar name might pop up. It's mostly on purpose (day hi to Genma!)


	4. Chapter 4: Teammates

Chapter 4: Teammates

  


There was that thing about Tsunade: when she was at home, when she was in the borders of Konoha, she was always letting her footsteps to be heard.

It was an unusual thing for a shinobi, but Nawaki - and probably many, many else people - counted it as a small blessing to have this warning.

Living with Tsunade under one roof for years made it fairly easy to interpret Tsunade's moods by the way she was walking. There ware homey, lazy footsteps, the excited tap-tap-tap that sounded almost like dancing because she found something new and interesting and couldn't wait to study it or the heavy stomps before morning tea that warned Nawaki to better stay away before she was fully awake.

Right now Tsunade was hitting the floor heavily with her heels and the wood protested with creaks, almost falling apart underneath her.

Nawaki couldn't help it, he swallowed nervously the very moment he recognized the sound. There wasn't even any place to duck and hide from her wrath, since they were still in the Hokage Tower.

Then Tsunade was in front of them, footsteps suddenly faltering and stopping dead in half-motion, as if she wasn't expecting to see them here.  
Her honey-brown eyes widened and took the whole group in, not missing even the tiniest detail, her brow furrowed in a way that didn't quite fit her still angry expression.

A blink of an eye later, Nawaki was pressed against her body in a hug that felt more like someone wrapped steel bars around him.  
Tsunade's clothes smelled like fresh laundry, while her skin still had the odor of alcohol, chemicals and blood. She probably just ended her shift at the hospital or someplace out of the village and made a beeline straight for the Hokage Tower the moment he learned they were here.

"I'm so glad," she whispered. "I'm so glad!"

Her shoulders shook.

Nawaki hugged her back, suddenly painfully aware of what could've been: Tsunade ending up all alone, the very last of their Clan.

Once the Senju were huge in numbers, but then the first war between the shinobi villages came; according to stories it was more like a hunt for members of certain clans than anything else and the Senju were the primal target: everyone was terrified of second coming of Hashirama, so killing off everyone who could inherit the wood release became a priority.

With children becoming genin much easier than it was done today, even hiding the family name outside Konoha wasn't doing much. What happened just outside the borders to his team was a proof enough.

"I assume Jiraiya informed you what had happened," Orochimaru mused after giving them a short moment.

Tsunade's head shot up and her arms stiffened before they relaxed, as if all the air suddenly left them.

"Orochimaru," she straightened up and looked up. "I don't know how I'll even thank you-!”

Tsunade slowly, stiffly released Nawaki and straightened up. She moved towards Orochimaru, but a few steps away she stopped, realizing that giving the man a bear hug would be a very bad idea.  
Not knowing what to do with her hands, she first covered her mouth and then settled for wrapping both arms around her own waist.

"I don't know how I'm going to express how sorry I am either," she admitted.

Orochimaru's expression didn't change, besides the now slightly raised eyebrows. They went even further up when Tsunade sniffed.

"Tsunade, you are making a scene," he pointed out with a small smile.

With that face expression, in rich and colorful clothing, Orochimaru looked like he owned this place, like he had absolute control over everything that was going on.

"I-" Tsunade started. "You're right."

She finally decided to cross the distance between them and snaked arm around his waist, setting fingers on his hip.

"Come," she ordered. "We need to catch up."

"My," Orochimaru chuckled, looking at her from under eyelashes. "How can I refuse such tempting offer?"

Nawaki was glad that they were finally leaving the building. If Tsunade was making a scene before, he had no idea what words he's supposed to describe what was in front of him. It looked like something uncle Raiya would enjoy way too much.

"You can't," Tsunade replied, hugging him closer, fingers tracing the complicated pattern on his obi.

"Well then it looks like the choice is out of my hand," Orochimaru chuckled softly. "Ducklings, please do follow."

Nawaki swallowed a whine. It looked like the odd nickname got stuck and there was no way to get away from it. He already could hear bystanders snickering.

"Ducklings?" Tsunade questioned.

Orochimaru just hummed instead of giving her an answer of any sort.

She glared at him, but almost instantly she got distracted by some little detail.

"...are you wearing makeup?"

"What if I am?"

"Nothing, I guess," Tsunade shrugged, voice becoming noticeably dry. “We'll talk later.”

Nawaki knew that tone all too well. It meant he was in trouble serious enough that Tsunade would wait with the scolding until they get home and then she would figure out a punishment that would make him never want to cross her path ever again. He almost felt sorry for his sensei.

Tsunade led them home, arm wrapped around Orochimaru's hip through the entire time, not caring for the people staring and whispering in hushed tones. Konoha gossip mill would surely be busy for months.

Once upon a time, the Senju clan was living in a compound, just like the Hyuuga, the Uchiha, like any other big clan.  
However the steadily diminishing numbers made the place look more and more empty, so they simply let go of all the space they didn't need. Shops blossomed and brought people back to the empty streets and the dead windows once again lightened up as the civilians and wanderers and even some people from Uzushio moved in

Currently there was only two of them and the building, once belonging to the Clan Head and his family, was still too big for just the two of them.

Still, it was home. It smelled like sap and medical herbs Tsunade was drying. The wooden boards were warm all the time, as if the house was welcoming them and creaked cheerfully under every step.  
The furniture was old, marked with age and many scars, both big and barely visible, each one of them marking something that once happened here, telling a story.

Tsunade led them all the way to what once was the main room. She was using it as her main workplace. There were rows of herbs hanging from the wooden beams supporting the ceiling and rows of the living plants growing in hand-made pots by the window.

Elegant cabinets were filled with boxes of bandages, antiseptics and many different sorts of medicine, most of it made by hand, some of it still at the experimental stage.  
There was a pile of scrolls by the table, some of them yellow with age and a microscope was standing on the wooden surface, surrounded by thin, leather cases filled with pieces of glass with tiny little bits carefully locked between them.

"Sit," Tsunade ordered. "You too. I want to take a look at you."

"Should you be doing that on your day off?" Orochimaru asked.

"It's my day off I can do whatever I please," Tsunade huffed angrily.

Nawaki, recognizing the tone of her voice, busied himself with preparing tea and setting down the cups and digging out some packaged snacks - the good stuff from the Akimichi shop, sealed with wax with their clan symbol on it - and sake bottles for the adults.

His teammates awkwardly sat down at the corner of the table, both of them trying to not to take too much space, stiff and clearly uncomfortable.  
Not that Nawaki himself felt good about the situation. He knew Orochimaru for as long as he could remember and it wasn't the first time when one of his sister teammates visited, but…

But everything was different now. The familiar situation was making the differences all that more striking.

"You're definitely something else," Tsunade groaned after she was done with looking Orochimaru up and down. "How much blood did you lose?"

"I'm not sure."

"No sake for you," Tsunade immediately stated.

Orochimaru looked her straight in the eye, arched and eyebrow and then he moved his hand.  
The arm slid out of the sleeve and moved all the way to the table, snatching one of the bottles in one swoop motion. Moment later Orochimaru was taking a sip, while not breaking the eye contact even for a moment.

"You could at least use a cup," Tsunade said with a grimace.

"I'm sorry, but you know how it is," Orochimaru said and smiled sweetly, shifting slightly, so she could clearly see his missing arm. "I suddenly found myself lacking certain... things."

"I am so unimpressed by you right now," she shook her head with a groan.

But the tension hidden in the line of her shoulders was gone.

“I've read through your hospital file, but I still want to see it for myself,” Tsunade declared, finally sounding like herself, loud and demanding. “We can move to other room of you want to.”

“You have here everything you need, right?” Orochimaru tilted his head. “I Don't see why we should move.”

Tsunade rolled her eyes.

“That only proves that people really are not your thing. Up. We're going to to bathroom to clean whatever you decided to put on your face.”

Nawaki knew there's no escape no matter who you are once Tsunade gets into a certain mindset.

Orochimaru clearly could recognize the situation, because he obediently followed her.

The three genin breathed out with relief.  
Somehow, without Orochimaru being in the same room, the all too visible proof of how all screwed up they were, it was easier to breathe. Or at least this was how Nawaki felt.

He brushed his fingers against the surface of the cast on his other arm. It was hard and cold and another ugly reminder of what had happened. According to the doctor at the hospital the damage was too big to deal with it in one go and Tsunade decided to agree, for whatever reason. He decided against arguing. She looked way too angry for it to be safe… but mostly because he didn't want to-

Nawaki jerked his hand away from the cast and looked up, searching for a distraction.

Kiwa sure had no problem with finding that one - she already had a paper package in her hands and was working on carefully opening it.  
Considering the oily stains on the surface of the waxed paper it was probably dried squid or some other thing like that. Nawaki shifted slightly, not eager to smell the heavy, fishy smell that sure would be coming any minute now.

Susumu was looking around with mild interest, but nothing seemed to be catching his attention for too long. Finally, he sighed and looked straight at Nawaki.

"So," he said. "Three months."

"Uh-huh," Nawaki nodded slowly. "You... don't have to do that, you know. I'm sure If you just ask-"

"What the shit you're talking about?" Kiwa grunted at him before he even managed to finish the sentence.

"You didn't even wanted to be on this team," Nawaki hissed back at her, carefully controlling his voice. He didn't want to be heard. "This is your chance!"

"Get the hell out yourself," Kiwa said, giving him a dirty glare. Without breaking the eye contact for even a moment she pulled out a handful of salty snacks out of the bag and popped it all into her mouth. "I'm staying."

"No way!" Nawaki stood up. "I'm not going to- I will not-!"

Susumu stood up too and put his hand on Nawaki's shoulder before he managed to find the right words.

"We're all in agreement then," he said softly. "I don't think fighting right now is going to help with anything."

"But he-!" Kiwa protested.

"We all need to rest," Susumu said and turned around, to face the girl. "Come. We should go."

She furrowed her brow, clearly considering her option, but not very eager to make the decision.

"We are in this together," Susumu continued, voice calm and steady. "So we shouldn't waste energy like that. It's not going to help us in any way."

Kiwa grunted something under her nose. Her shoulders slumbered and her face relaxed. She was still glaring at Nawaki, but at least her face expression didn't look like a promise of a broken nose anymore.

Nawaki bit his lower lip. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, so many answers he felt like he should demand to hear.  
But Susumu was right, so he swallowed all the words and let his teammates leave.  
There will be time, he thought as he closed his eyes and exhaled deeply.

There will be time to talk and to understand and to act as an actual team. After all, Tsunade and her own team made it work, despite how different they all were, no matter how much they argued with each other, how many times a mere talk turned into a shouting match.  
Nawaki couldn't help the little chuckle that escaped him, as he remembered Tsunade all puffed up and grumpy in anger for like fourth time during the same week.

"Ah, it's nice to see you smile like that," Tsunade said, suddenly right behind him, arms crossed on her chest and eyes sparkling with amusement. "You kids are doing okay then?"

"No," Nawaki shook his head. "Not at all!"

Her eyebrows rose up almost to the line of her hair before she shook her head.

"Kids these days," she sighed.

She started to turn away but didn't even manage to finish that motion when the window suddenly burst open buth a loud crack.

In a mess of white, tangled hair, vest zipped open and in disarray, Jiraiya jumped into the room.

"I am here!" he shouted as his geta hit the floor with a clack.

"Shoes off!" Tsunade squinted at him angrily.

"Sorry it took so long," Jiraiya continued. If not for the fact he was kicking the sandals off, it would look like he was completely ignoring Tsunade, still breathing heavily. "Bloody bureaucracy, I couldn't get away  earlier!"

"There was no need for such hurry," Orochimaru said.

He was sitting back in his spot, missing the outer layer of his clothes and leaning against the wall, visibly tired, but the half-closed eyes were sparkling with amusement and his lips were still stretched in a small smile.  
Jiraiya looked at him and straightened up, face blanking out for a moment before his eyebrows furrowed up. It was anger, but at the same time it was not. Nawaki wasn't sure how to name this feeling, but he felt exactly the same.

"I've heard what they did to you," he said stiffly. "That's..."

"Jiraiya," Orochimaru said softly.

"It's just bloody unfair!"

"Jiraiya," Orochimaru repeated.

"No, you shut up and you listen!" Jiraiya barked, stomping hard as he approached the other man. "Because I  know you and how reasonable you're going to be about this whole thing and how logical and just... fuck no, okay?"

It sounded like all the strength escaped him along with the air as he was finishing the sentence.

"Look," he started again with a loud, hissing inhale. "Nobody should be punished for doing the right thing because it is the right thing! You're great and I can't believe that- that-"

He punched the wall. Both of his hands were balled into fists, tight enough to make his knuckles white, all muscles tense to the point of shaking, words that should be left unsaid right there at the tip of his tongue.

"Shush," Orochimaru said. "There's just an interesting challenge and that's it."

"A challenge," Jiraiya repeated after him, his voice hollow.

"Yes, Jiraiya. A challenge," Orochimaru said, smile widening. "It's not going to be easy but none of the interesting things are."

Jiraiya's shoulders slumbered as he looked at Orochimaru, brows still furrowed, face still twisted in a pained expression that made him look ten years older.

"How can I help?" he finally asked, with a deep sigh.

Orochimaru looks at him from under his eyelashes and hummed thoughtfully, as if there were any other options to consider.

"Bring me the files of my genin team," he finally said.

Nawaki fought hard to keep his face expression neutral, even with his suspicions being pretty much confirmed at this moment.  
He really... he really forget their names. They were supposed to be a team, they were supposed to work together, to learn together and Orochimaru didn't even remember their names.  
It filed his mouth with a bitter taste and made his throat spasm in a way that made swallowing near impossible, because if someone like Orochimaru didn't bother to learn something-

"That's it?" Jiraiya looked at him like he was crazy.

"I'm not willing to risk angering Tsunade even further," Orochimaru chuckled softly at him. "So I can as well concentrate on rearranging my plans."

Jiraiya awkwardly, nervously smiled back at him, hand running through the white hair and messing it up even further, eyes dropping to the Orochimaru's wounded side before quickly escaping to stare at the corner of the room.

"Yeah, sure, makes sense!"

He kicked his sandals back on and escaped through the doors in a flash.

Nawaki looked down at his arm and felt jealousy rising in his throat.  
At least Jiraiya could somehow help, while all Nawaki could do was to just sit there and wait as Tsunade finish healing it - wasting the time she could spend on Orochimaru.

The bottle made a small click against the table, as Orochimaru put it away.

"You do know you can ask us for help, right?" Tsunade said, finally returning with a thin but wide box and a collection of bottles and boxes.

She set it all up on the table. Popping the wide box open, she quickly started filling tiny compartments inside with pills.

"I'm just as good as you are and currently not at risk of septic infection."

"There's not much to be done at the moment," Orochimaru said gently. "Only one of the children is in a shape  that would allow any sort of a training without any severe repercussions and since they're supposed to learn how to work as a team-"

He shrugged instead of finishing the sentence and then winced.

"Dumbass," Tsunade looked up from the medicine. "I've put here painkillers, anti-inflammatory medicine and slow-release chakra pills but... are you sure? There's more than enough space here-"

"I'm sure," Orochimaru smiled sweetly. "No need to lean on crutches if the main goal is to compensate, right?"

"...you have a  serious dictionary malfunction," Tsunade grimaced. "But whatever you want. Just promise to tell me the moment you notice something is off."

Orochimaru made a noise that sounded like an agreement and stood up. He scooped up the box now filled with pills and headed for the exit, just like Jiraiya did a moment ago.

"Wait, you're going?" Nawaki jumped to his feet. "But... why?"

"Nawaki," Tsunade called him softly.

"It doesn't make sense," he continued, deciding to ignore his sister. "At all! Shouldn't you stay here, with Tsunade, so she can make sure you heal right?"

"Nawaki."

Orochimaru calmly put on his shoes - only now Nawaki noticed that he was wearing geta instead of his usual tactical sandals. It made total sense, because geta was so much easier to put on, but still... ho did he even managed to walk quietly in these? Jiraiya was always announced by wooden clack-clack-clack of his shoes.

Nawaki opened his mouth and reached out, but stopped mid-motion, unsure what exactly he wanted to say.  
How was he supposed to voice what he felt and avoid putting foot town his own throat?  
Suddenly, there was a strong hand on his shoulder, heavy but warm and conforming.

"You notice that anything is off or swollen and you make a beeline to my place, understood?" Tsunade ordered, looking sternly at her teammate, hand never leaving Nawaki's shoulder.

"Of course," Orochimaru smiled and nodded and damn if it wasn't one of most false expressions Nawaki ever saw.

Tsunade quirked an eyebrow and then sighed heavily.

“Alright then,” she said shaking her head. “I'll visit you daily to check on the wound. Of I notice you're overdoing it, you'll regret the day you were born.”

“You care way too much,” Orochimaru smiled at her. It was a false, overly sweet expression that didn't look natural on his face at all. “ But thank you!”

“Behave,” she let him go with a roll of her eyes. “I'll check on you in the evening.”

“I’m already missing your presence,” Orochimaru chuckled and then turned on his heel and walked away. Slowly, not like a ninja at all.

“Well,” Tsunade said slowly. “He's definitely acting weirder than usual.””

Nawaki looked up at her, trying to read something from her expression. Naturally, he couldn’t. She was doing that jonin thing again, the one when face looked neutral but thoughtful, but everything else that usually showed in facial expression wasn’t there.

“Is this good?” he asked carefully, when they returned to the room and he was finally ready to admit his defeat. He picked up the empty bottle and considered putting the snacks away, but decided against it. Today felt like a day with scrolls, so he would be doing at least something to up his chances in the future, even by a minuscule amount. Having something to nibble on nearby definitely will get rid of any excuse to not study he could think of at the moment.

“It means he’s up to something,” Tsunade said reaching for her unfinished alcohol, smirk slowly blossoming on her lips. “And knowing him… “

The sentence was cut short.

There was a loud thud of something wooden hitting the wall quickly followed by another - a familiar sound of Jiraiya taking off his shoes. He always did it like that, despite Tsunade warning him over and over again to stop and behave like a normal human being. More than once, she tossed the gets right back at him. Once or twice it hit the target.

Soon enough, the man was standing in the doorway, looking around with a confused frown on his face and several envelopes in his hand.

"He left, didn't he?" Jiraiya groaned, while his shoulders slumbered. "What a drag. Does he think I'm gonna follow him through the entire village just because he asked me for a favor?"

Tsunade smirked from under her cup.

"You sure do owe him a lot of these, so, maybe?"

Jiraiya groaned again.

"Does he think I'm going to run back and forth through the entire village just to give him a pile of papers?" he grumbled, waving the papers in the air, as if it would magically summon Orochimaru back.

"You know him," Tsunade shrugged. "That was to be expected."

"Yeah," Jiraiya sighed deeply and leaned against the wall. "Still, it's kinda shitty. He knew it wouldn't take that long."

"I can do it," Nawaki found himself standing up, before he realized what he was doing.

Jiraiya arched an eyebrow at him.

"I mean," Nawaki continued, suddenly very nervous, looking down at his hand, at the stark white cast. "I can't do much like that, but I have no problem with walking places, right?"

Jiraiya chuckled and then reached out and messed up Nawaki's hair. His hand was heavy and strong, making it not the most pleasant of experiences, but it also was a clear sin of approval, so he decided to soldier through it rather than arching away.

"You're a good kid," Jiraiya declared with a wide grin. "I have no idea where that even came from, but you're a good kid!"

"Hey!" Tsunade protested and looked like she was ready to use now an empty sake bottle as a projectile.

Nawaki quickly grabbed the offered documents and made a dash for his sandals, only to stop and awkwardly fumble with putting them on.

Doing it one-handed was difficult and awkward, and he hated it.  
He closed his eyes. The guilt appeared suddenly, heavy like a stone that was dropped right on his chest, making it impossible to breathe. Gritting his teeth, Nawaki fumbled around with his sandals and finally managed to put them out through pure determination.

It was sunny outside; the sky was cerulean blue without a smallest cloud obscuring its radiant surface. The sunlight was reflecting in the windows and leaves, newly set up pipes and metal wind chimes, making the village look all that more brilliant.

Nawaki looked down at the brown envelopes in his hand, because it was much easier than looking at the unfairly colorful, cheerful world.

Then he furrowed his brow, anxiety completely forgotten. The envelopes were not closed; they were never secured in the first place, the glue on the edge dried and shining slightly in the sun.  
Nawaki swallowed. If he wanted, he could totally snoop and nobody would know any better.

He probably shouldn't - the documents handed to jonin were probably including way more details and personal information than the bingo book entries they worked on in the academy.

Finding a corner just for himself wasn't all that difficult; nobody was very interested in genin commissioned with some sort of a delivery - they were doing their job, therefore there was no need to pay attention to them.  
His own file was first and it looked... decent enough, or so Nawaki guessed.  
There was a long list of deceased members of his family - he winced, because he remembered maybe five of them, which was something he didn't want to think about.  
It was followed by a analysis of all the years he spend at the Academy.

"Wow," Nawaki mumbled and blushed in embarrassment at the note that he wasn't learning how to read fast enough to satisfy the person who created the note.

There were more little details like that one - notes about prank and interactions with his peers, especially kids from other clans and most of the girls of civilian background.  
Nawaki winced, because he could guess what that was about.

Both Susumu and Kiwa had a much thinner folders than he did; nobody spend much time analysing how they interacted with their peers. Most of the file was just filled with all sorts of information about their background.  
He eyeballed Susumu's note and then quickly shoved the papers back into the envelope, blushing even harder.

It sure was going to make talking with Susumu very awkward, at least until Nawaki somehow manages to forget about his adventurous and a samurai mercenary. If the whole family was treating it like a dirty secret, then surely the boy himself wouldn't like the topic to be touched by people who had no business being nosy.

Nawaki was about to put the rest of the papers back into the envelopes, determined to finish the snooping, when a bright red marking caught his eye.  
It was a stamp on Kiwa's file, red and serious and filling him with dread, because there was no other way to read the signs used in it.

"Flight Risk", it said and it was enough to make the cold sweat drip down his spine, making him shudder.

What. What, why, for what reason?

Question swirled inside his head like a swarm of dried leaves picked up by the wind.  
She was his teammate, she was the only one who somehow managed to keep head on the shoulders through the whole time when the enemy nin chased them, she was  a shinobi of Konoha, why even would she...?

Nawaki closed his eyes, desperately trying to swallow the bile rising in his throat.

It was the worst idea in his life, to just snoop like that, he should've known better. It was safer to not know things, that lesson was drilled over and over into their heads in the academy and the moment one of the teachers found that they were trying to  turn it into a joke the whole class ended up running one laps after another, until the last person dropped on the ground.

Not knowing was important, because then your conscience is clean, the enemies with abilities similar to those of Yamanaka wouldn't be able to learn anything to hurt their fellow ninja and Konoha and Nawaki just ignored it all.  
He groaned.

It was impossible to turn back time, so now he had to live with this. Facing both of his teammates was going to be horrible, he knew it already, so it was fairly lucky for him that for at least a week there was no reason for the entire team to even meet up.  
Chewing in his lower lip, Nawaki carefully put away Kiwa's folder, making sure it didn't look like anyone but jiraiya came in contact with whatever was inside the envelopes and wondered what Orochimaru was going to do.

Did he even bother to read the files in the first place? He was still going with that stupid nickname and Orochimaru was probably one of the smartest people alive, so it would be impossible for him to forget stuff like that.  
What was he going to do?

Kiwa was innocent, she didn't do anything, or rather she did all she could to keep the team alive and risked a lot attacking the much more experienced enemy shinobi, but with a mark like that on her file...

"We're going to die," her words once again ringed in his ears and for the second time, that fear actually had a reason to exist.

People deemed too dangerous usually disappeared, in a way that was barely noticeable if at all.  
She was rude, she was grumpy, she probably hated him guts, but Nawaki didn't want her to disappear only because she managed to piss off someone with that much power over her files.

"Just ignore it," Nawaki muttered to himself. "This butchered mission proved that she's a good person and she will prove it a few times more and it will be fine! It will!"

Orochimaru didn't let them die, even if it would be so much easier for him to just leave on his own, or to let them be taken by the explosion. But he didn't, he protected them, so he will protect them again against dumb paperwork and even dumber people behind it!  
He was still Hokage's favorite student, he was still brilliant, he definitely will figure it out!

Before Nawaki managed to fully recover from the shock, he was already standing in front of Orochimaru's house.

It was a building made in a rather old style, with thin paper walls on the inside that could be moved around and a lot of hidden space under the tatami mats.  
He didn't visit this place very often - mostly because Orochimaru wasn't too fond of little children making a mess of his pristine living space - but the image of mostly empty space, safe for lone, low table and set of pillows around it was very clear inside of his mind.  
Mostly because there was barely anything else to catch his eye.

He climbed up the stairs to the equally old-fashioned patio. The herbs around smelled like his sister place, the poisonous flowers were blossoming and filling the place with brilliant, bright colors. The old wood creaked under his feet and something darted among the twigs and leaves with a hissing noise.

Nawaki pushed the doors open and stopped in the opening.

Someone was inside besides Orochimaru, that much was clear - besides the familiar, black uniform sandals carelessly tossed into the corner, there was a pair of geta and a sets of child-sized sandals.

Nawaki felt tempted to turn on his heel right now and just run away, but it was probably way too late to leave unnoticed. With no other choice, he fought his own sandals again. It was a fairly decent distraction, that left him tired and annoyed enough to care.   
  
The room he entered was much smaller than Nawaki remembered, so the walls were definitely shifted at some point.   
The table was still there, through now it was almost invisible under a pile of scrolls and books, some of them occupying the floor around in a haphazard mess.   
Orochimaru was the source of mess, currently occupied with studying one of the scrolls, long paper unrolled and covering most of his crossed legs and dropping all the way to the floor.   
He was still wearing his hair up, but the outer, heavy robe was gone, along with whatever trick he used to cover the burnt marks creeping up the line of his neck all the way to  the jaw, angry and red.   
  
The doors leading to the kitchen area were slid open all the way through.

Nawaki couldn't see who was inside, but he could hear the repetitive sound of someone working there. One of his teammates was there and Nawaki swallowed, making a small step back.  
He bumped into something.

"Oh, hello!"

Nawaki jumped away with an embarrassing yelp.

Susumu kept smiling on him, hugging a big paper bag close to his chest and looking at him through the coriander leaves sticking out from the bag.  
Regaining his balance, Nawaki grinned back, trying to ignore the fact that his face felt hot.

"Um, hi!" he said, hoping he wasn't sounding too squeaky. "I wasn't expecting to see you here!"

"Likewise," Susumu nodded. "Weren't you supposed to stay home and rest?"

"I'm fine!" Nawaki replied quickly. "It's just my hand, I can walk around just fine!"

"It's good to hear," Susumu walked by him and bowed passing by Orochimaru and headed to the kitchen area.

"Oh, you're finally here," Kiwa peeked from behind the corner, grumpy as ever. "You have the... oh."

She noticed Nawaki and looked straight at him, eyes cold and judging.

"What are you doing here?" he blurted.

Kiwa blinked. Then raised one of her hands.

"Carrots," she said, as if it was explaining everything.  
She was holding a carrot indeed. It wasn't fully peeled, but it definitely helped Nawaki to identify the sounds coming from the kitchen.

"And why you are here?" she asked back, the tone of her voice still the same.

"Oh, right!" Nawaki gasped. "I have the files you asked Raya to find, sensei!"

Orochimaru finally raised his head from the scroll and looked at him, one eyebrow arched and a ghost of a smile on his lips.

"Thank you," he finally said. "Since you're all here we might as well treat this like a team meeting."

Nawaki nodded enthusiastically, Kiwa acknowledged it with a sharp nod and then stood awkwardly, clearly not sure if she should go back to the kitchen or  wait for something to happen.

"The files, please."

Nawaki, smiling nervously, quickly walked to the table and handed the envelopes over, glad that he was finally getting rid of them.

"You might help your teammate set things up," Orochimaru said, his eyes travelling from Nawaki and Susumu to Kiwa. "we're going to talk during dinner."

Nawaki bit his lip and concentrated on keeping his breathing even. Orochimaru was omitting certain information with such care it was a proof on its own that he was full of shit.

Since Nawaki could remember, Orochimaru always had an excuse to escape during the meal time when he was visiting Tsunade, stand-offish and not wishing to being roped into cooking - Tsunade hated it with a passion and would jump on the chance to bruteforce someone else to do all the work. So it was plenty weird to sit with him and the rest of the genin team around the table, now filled not with scrolls and notes but a set of neatly chopped vegetables and other additions to the shabu-shabu slowly steaming on the portable stove set right in the middle.

Orochimaru was carefully adding spices to the soup and putting in the vegetables that needed more time to cook along with pieces of beef, managing perfectly fine with just one hand.  
He looked... comfortable, like that. Calm. As if nothing was wrong at all.  
Damn, he was so good at acting!

While Nawaki was stewing on the inside, Kiwa shamelessly filled her bowl, selfishly hunting for the meat and pieces of bok choi.

Susumu glanced at her and chuckled, filling his own bowl with mostly soup. Ha waved the steam away and took a careful sip.

"Aren't you eating?"

"I'm uh, waiting for the carrots!" It was a dumb excuse, but it was all Nawaki got at the moment. He didn't want to be seen as the creep who just stared at people.

Orochimaru nodded.

Nawaki was still feeling awkward, but having a meal with his teammates... He wondered if other people were doing that too.  
It was... nice, despite everything. Usually it was just him and Tsunade and whatever they purchased for the day - and some other times he was just heading to the random restaurant while sister was working.

After dinner was finished, Susumu made tea, while he and Kiwa cleaned up the dishes, all done in silence. It wasn't as uncomfortable as in the beginning, though there was still tension in the air.  
He... he probably should talk to Kiwa, at some point.

But the tea was ready and it was time to sit down yet again and create some sort of a plan to save them all.

"For a group of a newly created genin team, all of you have performed extremely well."

Nawaki's eyes widened. He wasn't expecting to be praised at the very beginning. Especially when it was Orochimaru talking. he was always so.. aloof or baffled by people around him if it was a good day.

"Your teamwork was also at a very high level, considering you still are not used  to each other," Orochimaru continued. "Which is good, because it would give us more time to concentrate on your personal abilities and performing drills only to see how well you would integrate them fighting as a team."

"I'm sorry," Susumu bowed slightly. "I feel like I don't deserve this praise. I don't know anything but the standard academy ninjutsu, so I wasn't of much use-"

"Which was what I was expecting from all of you," Orochimaru replied, then looked at Kiwa, yellow eyes shining with interest. "Therefore I'm curious. How did you learn the Great Fireball?"

The girl stiffened up and her face hardened. She was clearly bracing herself for something.

"I was sneaking on Uchiha training," Kiwa finally dropped the bomb, trying to sound like she was talking about the weather and failing.

"You were spying on the Uchiha?!" Nawaki gasped, almost standing up. "But, but, but-!"

"On the kids!" she huffed at him, crossing arms on her chest. "It's like an important thing to them, to learn that before they hit genin rank, so they train on their own a lot. I didn't even need to enter the compound."

"Which is probably what saved you from being arrested," Orochimaru chuckled.

She winced. "...am I in trouble?"

"Luckily, this jutsu is not a clan secret," Orochimaru replied. "So no, you're not in trouble. However I would prefer for you to not learn ninjutsu without me watching you. the best outcome of butchering a jutsu is it not working. usually it ends much worse."

Kiwa made a small noise, that didn't sound like she was sorry at all. Neither she looked scared.

"Nawaki, I'm talking to you too. It is good that you are learning by watching your sister, but don't try to copy her without supervision."

"Yeah," he nodded with an embarrassed grin. "She told me that too. Among other things."

All of them very loud and very stern. His ears were still ringing.

"Good," Orochimaru nodded and pulled out a small envelope. "We might as well start from ninjutsu. I presume you all are familiar with the chakra paper?"

"It is the stuff used to check for elemental affinity, right?" Nawaki asked, furrowing his brow.

"Among other things," Orochimaru nodded. "Having that knowledge would help me to pick the right jutsu for all of you to learn when you will be able to safely use ninjutsu again."

Nawaki's piece of paper got covered in dirt the moment he concentrated on his chakra.

"Earth?" he blinked.

"I was expecting something like that," Orochimaru said with a nod. "Senju usually have earth or water release, sometimes both."

"Uh-huh," Nawaki nodded. Honestly, he hoped that it would be something else. There weren't many Earth users in Konoha and so many techniques were never written down that most of it was long forgotten.   
He jealously eyed Susumu's paper - it burned.

Kiwa's paper also burned, but before that, it also got dirty.

"That's interesting," Orochimaru hummed. "Through not entirely surprising."

"Only one of you is able to learn ninjutsu at this point anyway, so tomorrow we will start with meditation and theoretical apply of your skills in  different scenarios."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was hoping for shorter chapters in this one, but no. It keeps growing on me until it's ridiculous.
> 
> Poor Nawaki, no rest for him and his emotions are all over the place.


	5. Bumps In The Road

Chapter 5: Bumps In The Road

 

Nawaki was looking at his hand with brow furrowed in concentration. His fingers were clenching and unclenching and the wrist moved just like it was supposed too.  
Still, it felt... odd. The skin was hypersensitive and it was almost like he felt every moment stronger than it was supposed to be.

"It's normal," Tsunade replied. "It wasn't immobilized long enough for you to lose any strength, but you still should exercise it to loosen up the muscles."

Nawaki nodded. Everyone who trained to be a ninja had some sort of an experience with muscles cramps. They were a horrible, horrible thing.

"So..." he started awkwardly. "How are you doing it and not hurt yourself?"

"Don't!" Tsunade barked a warning, her face turning from soft to serious in a split of a second. "Don't try to do it again."

Nawaki slowly nodded.

"This is serious," she continued. "This skill, it demands an amount of chakra control you're not able to reach yet. You were very lucky this time, but luck runs out and then you're left in the dust."

Nawaki looked away, the image of Orochimaru's heavily wounded arm flashing before his eyes.  
He swallowed.

"I know," he said. "It all is."

Tsunade sighed deeply and pinched the bridge of her nose, before she looked at him again, brow furrowed, eyes sharp.

"Are you okay?" Despite the face expression, her voice was quiet and oddly soft. She didn't sound like herself, talking like that.

"I'm good enough to start training again, right?" Nawaki forced himself to grin. Training was normal and normalcy was something he really wanted back in his life.

Tsunade's eyebrow twitched. Apparently he made a mistake in his choice of words.

"This is not what I'm asking about," she said sternly.

Nawaki looked down, not wanting to look in those eyes. She was always able to read him like a book. Making her even more worried wasn't something Nawaki wanted to do.  
It was enough that he was waking up every night with mouth filled with the taste of smoke and pajama damp from sweat.

He knelt down and started messing with his sandals, readjusting everything despite the fact there was no need to do so.  
Tsunade would not like his answer to that question.

"I need to go," he said, straightening up and hiding behind a wide, toothy gin. "I don't want to be late!"

He escaped before she had time to reply, jogging through the nooks and crannies of Konoha, picking the fastest way to the training ground they were meeting at.

The Forest of Death was still unavailable, so Orochimaru picked one of the other training grounds, one that had an access to a body of water. It looked... pleasant enough.  
The body of water was more of a stream than anything; over a meter wide but very shallow, with round stones clearly visible.  
His team was already waiting, standing by the training posts set up not far from the tree line.

"I'm so sorry!" he blurted the moment he was close enough to be heard without any screaming involved. "I thought I would be on time!"

"Relax," Susumu smiled at him. "You are. We just happened to come here earlier."

"Oh," Nawaki blinked. "Alright then. I guess."

Orochimaru started with running them ragged, because of course he would create the most sadistic mix of stretching and endurance exercises.

"I hope you remember this set well," Orochimaru cheerfully declared. "This is how you should start every morning from now on."

Nawaki moaned painfully. While he wasn't fighting for every breath - the exercises were mixed up enough to make them stretch when they were about to drop - but his joints felt like they melted and now his limbs were just a wobbly, noodle-like mess.

"Take a breather," Orochimaru said, sitting on the ground by them. He spend all that time right next to them, making sure they were moving in the exact right way, but of course he looked pristine, save for the still healing marks on the side of his face; Tsunade took over healing him and the process was still ongoing.

"After we eat, we'll see how is your chakra control," Orochimaru continued. "I want to make sure you're good enough before we start on ninjutsu."

There was no need to head out to find a food stall; apparently his team was ready for everything and there were bento boxes just waiting to be open.

"I'll bring something next time!" Nawaki declared before he opened his box.

There was a lot of meat inside, along with rice balls that looked spicy and dried fruits, sparkling with sugary glaze. Nawaki glanced at Kiwa, who was probably responsible for it - the girl was already stuffing her face, not bothering with waiting for the rest of them.  
Yep, Nawaki nodded to himself. It was definitely her doing.

"And now you're going to walk up trees!" Orochimaru cheerfully declared after they finished the meal. "It would help me see how good is your chakra control and the skill itself is more useful than sticking a leaf to your skin."

Nawaki listened carefully as Orochimaru explained what they were supposed to do with chakra and how it should work.  
It sounded sort of like that thing he did with his hand when he punched the ground, only it required much, much smaller amount.  
The nearest tree looked just like any other; the lower branches were carefully cut away as the tree grew, creating a straight trunk. It was ideal for a training like that.  
Concentrating, Nawaki placed one foot on the bark, then another.

He managed to stand still sideways just fine, but how how long?  
Nawaki grimaced, trying to ignore his abdominal muscles. The pain was already there, burning, demanding his attention, making his tights shake from pure effort. Then there was a pop and Nawaki dropped on the ground.

"Ow!" he groaned and curled into a ball, holding onto his tummy. And here he was, thinking that chakra training wouldn't be harder than the physical one!

His teammates definitely had different approach.

Susumu was standing in front of a tree of his choosing, making thoughtful noises and placing one foot on the wooden surface from time to time, before shaking his head and lowering it back to the ground, while Kiwa was moving all around the place, collecting fallen leaves and handfuls of moss, just to dump it in the front of her tree, creating a pillow of sorts.

After several rounds  of that she looked like she was satisfied with it and ran straight up the tree. About three metres over ground she suddenly popped off the bark and felt down like a rock.

She sa up almost immediately, shook her head and started climbing back almost immediately, not bothering to shake leaves and dirt off her clothes.  
Moment later she was falling down again.

"Right," Nawaki muttered. He should follow her example. Or at least get up the tree high enough to get an access to a branch, because hanging upside down would be much less straining  on his muscles than standing sideways was.  
Neither of them managed to get up very high.

"I don't want any of you to train on your own," Orochimaru warned them in the evening. "Overtaxing yourself would be just a waste of time and that's not something you have to spare. However you can work on hand signs and their speed."

The next day was just the same, but with sore muscles.

While Susumu was trying to spit fire over the river, Nawaki and Kiwa were listening to Orochimaru explaining the jutsu they were supposed to learn.

"It's a mud wall?" Nawaki repeated after Orochimaru, hoping that he heard it wrong.

It sounded like a very underwhelming thing and he hoped for something... else. Something actually awesome and flashy and maybe even useful.  
He glanced to the side and Kiwa looked equally underwhelmed.

"It is," Orochimaru replied gleefully, clearly enjoying their discomfort.

"So... why are we learning this?" Nawaki asked carefully. "We have two and half of a month to get ready to prove we're good enough!"

And the lack of time was pretty damn scary. Every day was passing in a blink of an eye and all they managed to gain was sore muscles.

"First of all, it is a very easy ninjutsu to learn, so it's perfect for the beginners," Orochimaru explained, still smiling. "It also doesn't require  many hand signs, so it's fairly quick even if performed by an inexperienced user."

Kiwa looked at him and Nawaki shrugged. Those were advantages for sure, but it didn't change the fact that a pile of mud wasn't something they can show and expect people to clap their hands in awe.

"It's not something that would let you stand your ground or overwhelm the enemy, but you'll need years to approach that level anyway," Orochimaru continued. "However it had many uses that would fit the way you perform on the battleground. Care to figure out how?"

"It's like Nawaki's thing, right? The one with the punching ground?" Kiwa murmured. "So, it's a shield that would work for one, maybe two hits. Only without breaking his hand."

Nawaki scowled.

"Anything else?" Orochimaru tilted his head.

That pretty much meant that there was something else.

"It shields you, so it also hides you, right?" Nawaki hummed. "So you can use kawarimi unnoticed, or surprise the enemy with another jutsu, or create a trap..."

Once he started picturing out what could be possible, the dumb jutsu stopped looking all that bad. Sure, it was still a very basic one, but if they work out a strategy to use it in battle.

"Correct!" Nawaki was sure Orochimaru would clap his hands if he still had both of them. It was a little bit uncanny how much he seemed to enjoy himself. "It comes with one additional plus: not many people would expect a Konoha nin to use a jutsu taught to young Iwa shinobi."

They both nodded.  
The Mud Wall was an easy to jutsu to learn not only because it required only four hand signs. It wasn't a volatile one and it didn't need a very good chakra control either. The worst thing that happened was the one time when Nawaki pointed the jutsu wrong and tripped Kiwa by creating a little crater of wet earth right under her feet.

"Watch what you're doing!" she barked at him. And then tried to use the same trick on him, but Nawaki managed to step away right in time.

"Hey!" she protested. "Stay in one place!"

"No way!" he laughed and tried to create another bump of soil.

naturally, it turned into a game, with him and Kiwa running around the training ground and trying to trip each other, while Orochimaru worked with Susumu on the jutsu that actually could hurt someone.  
The evening came surprisingly quick.

"Tomorrow we will continue," Orochimaru declared. "I want you all to be able to  use this jutsu and use it effectively during mock-fights against me before we move on to the next one."

"What it's going to be?" Nawaki asked instantly. Maybe this time it would be something exciting! "Something cool?"

"A Mud Clone!" Orochimaru smiled at him.

Nawaki's shoulders momentary slumbered.

"Another defensive one?" he sighed.

"You need to stay alive long enough to get a lucky shot," the man shrugged. "It's also one of my favorites."

"It is?" Nawaki raised his eyebrow. "So, you are Earth nature?"

"Wind, actually."

"Isn't it like a total opposite?"

"It is," Orochimaru nodded.

"Wouldn't it make learning it way more difficult?"

Orochimaru merely chuckled.

The next day started just like this one, first with a series of stretches and then the horrible endurance thing that was leaving them all breathless.  
However, before they managed to get through the first set of motion, an ANBU shunshined into the training ground, a few steps away from them. High, probably male through the vest and the loose pants were making it difficult to say and completely nondescript, safe for the mask that looked less animal-like than usual. It was just a swirl of red and that was it.

Orochimaru furrowed his brow.

"What it is?" he asked.

"Jonin Orochimaru, you are needed in the T&I," the ANBU declared, his voice emotionless and professional.

"I was under the impression that due to my circumstances I'm out of commission for the next few months."

"Your abilities are deemed to be the best fit for the task," came the answer.

Orochimaru hummed thoughtfully, hand up and fingers taping against his chin, eyes half-closed and not leaving the ANBU for even a split of a second.

"Would it be fine if we made a trip to the mission desk?" he asked finally. "I would hate to leave my genin team on their own."

The ANBU shifted and was silent for a moment before he made his decision.

"I cannot give you too much time, but it sounds doable if your team is not too picky."

"Lets not waste any more of it then," Orochimaru nodded in thanks. "Ducklings, please do follow!"

Nawaki graned painfully..  
This wasn't supposed to be happening. He had no idea what exactly it was, but he knew it was completely unfair. It was literally robbing them of the little time they had.  

Things got even worse when they've got close the Hokage Tower, because it was the time when Konoha was the most lively, with people bringing their children to the Academy, going up and down the main street, hurrying to work and entering the shops. Nawaki had no idea if the people were staring at them because by now everyone had heard about the impossible challenge their team was facing or it was because the ANBU strolling like just another pedestrian right next to Orochimaru.  
Everyone knew of ANBU, that they were there, but actually seeing one was something different. Even for Nawaki it felt just plain weird.

Orochimaru didn't seem to mind the attention at all. Quite the opposite - with a smile glued to his mouths, he moved like he was the Daimyo of Fire himself.  
Nawaki felt a pang of jealousy. Oh, how he wished to have such strength of will, to be so comfortable in his own skin to just ignore the stares and the whispers!

It wasn't any better when they finally arrived at the mission desk.  
He expected shinobi to not gawk at other people, or at least to do it stealthily. However curious looks weren't the worst thing in the room. A far more unpleasant surprise was waiting.

Danzo Shimura was there, hovering over the desk, face stern, single eye watching everything with an intensity of a hawk that spotted its prey.

Nawaki closed his eyes and breathed, trying to calm himself down as much as it was possible before the encounter. There was no possible way that they have arrived unnoticed.  
They truly were not.

"Orochimaru," Danzo said, not bothering to even a nod in his direction. "I was under the impression that your team was off-duty until it proves to be capable of entering the battlefield."

"My, I was under the same impression!" Orochimaru chuckled, as if he heard some sort of a great joke. "And here I am, with ANBU Koi at my side!"

Oh, Koi, that made sense! There were many ways to make an ANBU mask to look like a fish.

"You can't possibly believe that Konoha is capable of supporting people without asking for anything in exchange," the corner of Danzo's mouths twitched in distaste. "Not now, when out troops fight so desperately at the front lines."

"You have nothing to worry about," Orochimaru moved his hand like he was waving Danzo's words away. "I'm aware that the Academy students are covering all the chores around the village. I merely need an adult to supervise them, while I'm away, serving the village in another way."

Nawaki didn't dare to look up, away from the floor. The tension in the air was almost tangible, making it difficult to breathe, difficult to do anything but shake and sweat.  
Was Orochimaru trying to annoy the man who literally held their lives in the palm of his hand on purpose? Why? What for? Wasn't it making their situation even worse?

"You can't possibly believe that Konoha had a Jonin to spare to take your place," Danzo hissed. It was a very theatrical way of hissing, the one where the entire room could hear him clearly even if they weren't ninja. "Even our Chunins are in the village only because they desperately need rest. Are you truly so vain you're willing to rob them of that?"

The situation was getting more and more horrible with every passing minute, with every word spoken.  
Nawaki could feel the stares, could feel the shift in the air, curiosity slowly turning into something more vile.

"We can-" Nawaki started, desperately o somehow turn the tide, to find a way out before things got even worse.  
It wouldn't be even a lie: they totally could o through their physical training on their own and then fight it each other and study scrolls or practice creating traps until the evening. They would be just fine.

"I merely said I need an adult," Orochimaru replied sweetly, still calm, still smiling, yellow eyes sparkling like he was a cat that just noticed a mouse.

"A genin supervising a training of other genin?" Danzo didn't snicker, but he didn't need to. It sounded ridiculous on its own.

"Ah, we all know some people are unable to lead others despite having a great potential at their disposal!"

Danzo looked unimpressed. He looked around and winced, like he smelled something gross.

"Make your choice," he finally allowed. "And then go and be of some use to the village."

Orochimaru hummed, cheerfully ignoring the spite, yellow eyes darting around.

Nawaki couldn't help himself, but looked around too.  
Somehow, their situation was not going to get any worse, through it definitely won't make people believe in their team succeeding at their task. If anything, the opposite.

There was that Aburame girl from his class, Tanna, long, messy hair covering her face as always, standing in an even row with two boys who looked only vaguely familiar, all of them standing in an even row, waiting for the man with with a blank face to finish filling documents.

He looked like a man who served in ANBU for too long and didn't manage to shake off the habits. Either that or there wasn't anything inside his head besides these habits. Sister sometimes talked about people like that and how she didn't like to deal with that kind of people, both during missions and having them as a patients. The former probably more.

Not far away there were other ground, some of them glancing with their direction with open curiosity, other ones doing it with more finesse.

And then there was a group that seemed to not even notice the tense atmosphere and create a ruckus all of their own. They looked older than the usual genin group, one of them sticking like a sore thumb not only because he was the loudest person inside the room. He looked old for a ninja and the thick, black mustache and a mess of a haircut wasn't making things any better.

"Oh, he would do just fine!" Orochimaru cheerfully said, pointing at-

Oh no, Nawaki thought. Oh no, no, no!

He hoped, he hoped so much it was some sort of a joke, that Orochimaru was just pulling their leg, but no. He was pointing right at the obnoxious man.

"The Eternal Genin," Danzo commented dryly. "So be it. At least you seem to finally see the fate of this team clearly."

Nawaki blinked and then swallowed a pained groan. The nickname what was clicked and he finally could tell who exactly was the man Orochimaru decided to supervise them.

"Such a  great chance! An opportunity to see the youth of the new generation to blossom!" they already left the Hokage Tower, crossed the street and the man was still screaming and waving his hands, literally running circles around them.

"...is this the village idiot?" Kiwa whispered, eyeing the man with suspicion.

"It is," Nawaki sighed painfully.

Maito Dai, the Genin known for butchering even the easy missions, obnoxiously loud and acting like anything but a shinobi.

"Is this some sort of a revenge?" Kiwa groaned. "Or some sort of a political play?"

"Probably both," Nawaki whispered.

Danzo was doing everything in his might to sew the seeds of distrust, to set the people of the village against them.  
Nawaki wasn't even sure why he was doing.

The only thing Orochimaru could do at the moment was to portray them as something that wouldn't endanger the village and setting them up with a local idiot was the fastest way to achieve this goal.

"We just have to get through with it," Nawaki whispered. "Just today."

"You think we can just ignore the guy and do our thing?"

"You really think he would let us?"

Kiwa glanced at the overenthusiastic man, at the way he was bouncing with excitement, he wide gestures he used when he described what sort of crazy exercises they could do together.

"We're so screwed."

 

Xxx

 

"You reek like a corpse," Jiraiya said with a distaste the very moment Orochimaru sat down next to him.

It was late evening, but Nawaki was so tired, he couldn't sleep, no matter how hard he tried. Despite the hot bath and spending a long time stretching, is joints were still pulsing with a dull pain, while his muscles felt as if he was an overcooked noodle. However his brain was free to record every second of shame and now was returning to the most humiliating bits, over and over again.

He decided to grab one of the basic books on anatomy - Tsunade owner a very big collection of those and developed a habit of making notes on the margins - to have an excuse for hanging out with the adults despite the time.   
It was way better than lying in the darkness, staring at the ceiling and listen to the muted voices from downstairs.

Jiraiya was drinking with sister for about an hour now, talking about everything and nothing. Neither of them paid much attention to Nawaki, but he didn't mind.

"That would make sense," he admitted with a face like made of stone, reaching for the sake. "I was mangling one the whole day."

"Gross!" Jiraiya declared.

"That was the oh so important mission the ANBU had for you?" Tsunade shook her head in dismay. "That's just...! Anyone could do it!"

"Apparently I'm the fastest," Orochimaru shrugged. "It's not like I had the option to refuse."

“My ass you hadn't had the option,” Tsunade hissed, already kneeling next to him. She grabbed him by the jaw and forcibly shifted his head to the side to have the see the burnt marks better. 

“You shouldn't be anywhere close to the morgue, not digging through the guts,” she continued angrily. Her other hand, shining with green chakra was slowly travelling down the neck. “You know there are many possibilities to sabotage a corpse. And even if it wasn't, you're still not fully healed.”

Orochimaru patiently waited for her to finish, knowing better than trying to wiggle away.

“You know there would be consequences for refusal, even with decent reasoning behind it.”

Nawaki furrowed his brow, staring at the page with a well detailed drawing of a femur, trying to figure out what the adults were leaving out of the conversation.  
What consequences? Why someone was so stubborn and was sending Orochimaru to work despite the risk?

"This is bullshit and we all know it," Jiraiya took a deep sip if his sake.

"I still have a question: why in the world didn't you come to one of us?" Tsunade finally let go of Orochimaru and leaned back. She rested her chin on the palm of her hand and glared at him. "We would've cover for you!"

"I don't want to use that card yet," Orochimaru replied with a smile.

"Card?" Tsunade straightened up. "Card?! You left your team with the bloody eternal genin! What sort of a message that was?!"

"He did what?" Jiraiya perked up. He turned around, to glance at Nawaki and his team.

They were probably a miserable sight, because everyone just dropped on the floor the moment they reached the cushions and stayed there, unmoving.

"Holy shit, you really did that!"

Orochimaru smirked as Jiraiya laughed out loud and Nawaki had no energy to even despite him a little for letting Maito Dai take charge of them.  
If the madman was doing that every day no wonder he was too wiped to perform well on the missions! It was pure insanity!

"Why do you act like you approve?!" Tsunade smacked Jiraiya over the head, but the man only laughed even harder. "You should not approve, it was idiotic!"

"The children should take a hot bath and stretch before they go to bed," Orochimaru nodded. "However I think the experience is going to be useful."

"Useful how?" Tsunade growled at him. "I think they pretty damn well knew already how much they can take!"

"They know how it is to push themselves to the limits in a dangerous situation, " Orochimaru said. "But I don't think they were aware how desperate one could get trying to achieve something,"

"There's that funny little thing called talking?" Tsunade pointed out dryly.

"It doesn't work as well as an actual experience," he replied. "Besides, I like his enthusiasm."

Tsunade blinked.

"You like it."

"I like it," Orochimaru confirmed.

Tsunade blinked again, squinting suspiciously first at the man and then at the sake bottle on the table.

"I don't get it!" Jiraiya declared loudly, messing up his own hair as if he was looking for the answer somewhere in his wild mane. "Especially with you bitching at me every other day to be more serious!

Orochimaru eyes him from under his eyelashes, humming in consideration.

"You don't have the charm," he finally stated, leaving Jiraiya gaping.

"Charm?!" he shouted. "Charm?! I have less charm than, than-!"

"Well, he is married."

"Now that's the reason to drink myself under the table," Tsunade stated and generously refilled her cup. "With any luck I would have the image out of my head by the morning."

Jiraiya continued to make a little, choked noises of dismay, ignoring the alcohol even after Tsunade refilled his cup and hit it with her own before she took a deep swing.

"I don't care if there's a rainbow coming out of his ass," she stated as she exhaled deeply and put the cup on the table with a loud thud. "I don't want you asking this guy to train my brother if there are other options, even if it's going against whatever you've planned."

Orochimaru closed his eyes and sighed.

"The moment I ask you for help is going to be the same moment you will find yourself with a lot of missions far out of the village," he said.

Nawaki stiffened.  
He hoped that today was just a fluke, a situation that was not going to repeat itself, but...  
But it sounded like the councilman was not only putting them in a situation where only a miracle couls save them, he also was doing everything in his might to make the task truly impossible to accomplish.

"Currently he sees me as too prideful to ask my teammates for help," Orochimaru continued. "And I would prefer to keep things as they are."

Tsunade tsked and reached for the bottle only to discover it was empty. She tossed it away without a care.  
Luckily, it didn't break, but tiny droplets of the left over alcohol spilled around, shining in the shaky light of oil lamps like red jewels.

"What if we set up a date with someone else?" Jiraiya hummed into his cup. "We're not the only Jonin in the village and everyone is using the training grounds. It's just the matter of picking a person with the right set of skills."

Orochimaru tilted his head to the side.

"You might be actually on to something," he admitted.

"So?" Jiraiya grinned. "What do you need?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter wanted to be written.
> 
> I really liked the clever spam of a shitty earth jutsu to stop a ridiculously powerful attack, so here. Kids are having some fun with it.
> 
> Thank you for all the attention, reviews are very appreciated!


	6. Two Worlds

Chapter 6: Two Worlds

 

Despite spending a lot of time stretching after the insane training Maito Dai had put them trough and performing another set of exercises right before, Nawaki still felt like death incarnated in the morning.  
Considering the painful moans of his teammates when Orochimaru ordered them to start the training from their usual routine, he wasn't the only one.

"You are allowed to be slower today," he said. "However if I notice you slacking off or not performing the exercises properly, you will start from the very beginning."

That definitely sound scary, so they all put great care to perform perfectly.  
It seemed to go on forever, the familiar sets of motions were stretching time more than ever before.

Nawaki couldn't help himself; he was glancing at Orochimaru, praying that nothing would happen, that Orochimaru would not be called for yet another mission.

"As Chunin you will need to be able to withstand weeks of intense physical activity," Orochimaru said, when they were finally done, lying on the ground like discarded trash.

"So, we're learning how to power through the pain?" Nawaki guessed.

"No," Orochimaru shook his head. "It's about learning about how much your body can take before the pain sets in."

"You are not allowed to let yourself be exhaust to that point, unless you're fighting for your life and there's no way to escape."

"Escape?" Kiwa sat up, blinking. "Why would we-?"

"A dead shinobi is an useless shinobi," Orochimaru replied. "I don't want you to throw your life away because of silly reasons like honor or pride."

"If we escape from the fight we are going to die anyway," Kiwa muttered. "It's desertion, isn't it?"

"What are you, a samurai?" Orochimaru quirked an eyebrow and chuckled. "You're not supposed to even face the enemy face to face. What are you learning now is how to survive the worst case scenario."

"And that's going to be on our test, right?" Nawaki said grimly."They'll made us face someone or something, like in a duel. You can't hide in a duel!"

Orochimaru tilted his head and blinked slowly, once, then twice.

"Oh really?" he finally asked.

Nawaki blushed, but he wasn't done talking yet, even if it sounded like he was whining.

"Well, I'm not you!" he protested. "I'm not fast enough, I don't know enough ninjutsu, I just can't-"

Orochimaru raised his hand and waited.

Nawaki obediently shit his mouth in the middle of the sentence.

"You are going to face something or someone you are not going to be able to overpower," he said calmly, softly. It was sweet, almost hypnotic and completely not fitting the conversation. "Therefore you need to figure out how to use what you know to even out the field."

"It still sounds impossible," Nawaki grunted. "But I'll try my hardest!"

"Good," Orochimaru nodded, satisfied with the answer. "Today we will continue on practicing the jutsu you've already learned. I want you to be able to both perform it quickly and only as powerful as you need it at the moment - when you need to simply trip the enemy you don't need to create a wall."

They all nodded, grateful that Orochimaru was feeling merciful today.

"If I'll be summoned again, I want you to perform your daily exercises," he continued. "You'll be watching each other, looking for mistakes and correct your teammates if needed."

"Are you... expecting they will do it again?"

He hoped not, he hoped it was just a healthy dose of paranoia, but… but he rememberedhow Shimura looked at them, he remembered how quickly the mood changed back by the mission desk. Just a few words and the entire village would be against them.

"You know the situation," Orochimaru said softly. Then he smirked. "When you're all done, I want you two to chase Nawaki."

"What?" he gasped, taken aback by this sudden change of mood. That and the glances his teammates we're already exchanging.

"Give him half an hour to escape and prepare," Orochimaru cheerfully continued. "I want everyone to use all their skills, through I would prefer paint to lethal force."

"What is going to happen when we catch him?" Kiwa inquired.

"Oh, it's easy! You're going to be chased next!" came the reply.

She tilted her head and considered it for a moment and then her mouth twisted in a grimace.

"So... we're basically going to play tag all day long?"

"You all are going to practice escaping the battlefield, choosing your own battlefield and setting it up to suit your needs," Orochimaru replied. "With every rotation I want you to lower the escape time by five minutes and continue on all the way up until you reach zero."

"Then what? Start again?"

"Repeat the zero stage up until all of you are able to get away and either hide or continue to avoiding your teammates for half of an hour," Orochimaru hummed. "Then... the chasing team gets the chance to build their traps and tie you up."

Nawaki winced. That part would be so not fun.

It also sounded like Orochimaru expected to be dragged away from their training a lot and simply figured out a way to for them to keep training while he was away and there was no shinobi to keep an eye over their training.  
It still was better than training with that crazy guy again, but...

But would be good enough to let them pass whatever they were going to face? Just a few basic techniques, only one of them capable of causing any damage to the opponent and trickery practiced on teammates?  
It sounded just plain miserable.

If Orochimaru was right and they were really fighting against the council, They had maybe one or two chances to train under Jiraiya or Tsunade before they'll be send on a mission far away from the village.

Then again, they could be send out there at any moment anyway, so they could miss that chance entirely.

 

xxx

 

They have finished training some time ago, but despite the time, Nawaki didn't feel like going back home just yet.  
He felt tired, but not in the way that promised falling asleep the moment he lied down in his bed - the opposite kind, where bones feel heavy and the mind goes ten thousands miles a minute.  
It was easier to just walk around, hoping that if he just burned off the miserable remains of energy he would drop like a fly at some point.

For a city with the most of the population made of shinobi, Konoha was surprisingly filled with people.  
Nawaki expected the streets to be empty, with everyone out and fighting or patrolling the borders and guarding the gate, but there were people in the streets, despite the late time.  
A surprising amount of civilians everywhere, people Nawaki couldn't recognize. They had tired faces and fingers covered in bandages and band-aids.

Right, Nawaki thought.

Refugees. When the shinobi were at war, civilians from little villages and cities were suffering; the fight often turned their homes into ash. And if not that, then the risk of the missing-nin targeting their houses as the easy source of money and resources... It was way safer to move to where they could be safe and safety was something Konoha could guarantee them.

Work was there too - the shinobi uniforms were way more durable than any other clothing, with fabric created with knifes and fire in mind, but at the same time it made it very difficult and time consuming to sew.  
It was a decent job, a good job, one that let them all help Konoha just as she was helping them.

Someone had to dry all the fruits and mix them with the protein paste to make the ration bars, someone else had to deal with making the crackers and the senbons needed to be carefully carved too.

Occupied with the Academy and training, Nawaki didn't pay much attention to the growing city and growing it was indeed - new building were popping out of nowhere, now creating an entirely new district of slightly shabby buildings, usually two store high or even higher, just to save some space.

No wonder he hospital had trouble with keeping up; there were way, way more people in Konoha than all those years ago when it was build.

Once sparkled, the curiosity wasn't  going anywhere.  
Nawaki chewed on his lower lip and considered if he should let the temptation led him down the narrow alley, just to see what he could find there.

Nawaki was about to make the first step, when he felt someone's presence right behind.  
Definitely not a civilian, because they do no appear out of nowhere, but he was in the village, so it shouldn't, couldn't be the enemy, but it was just the same right at the border-

"Senju!"

Goosebumps covered his skin at the same moment as his muscles relaxed, which probably wasn't how a body was supposed to act at all.

He knew the voice, but hearing his last name like that... it was too soon.

"What are you up too? Got stuck with keeping an eye on the refugees too?"

Akimichi Chiharu was smiling at him, oblivious to his inner turmoil, bright and sweet.

She was still wearing her hair braided tightly, but instead of the cheongsam with a flower pattern she was now wearing the generic uniform and an armor, just like the rest of the Akimichi clan.  
They were the only clan that still preferred the heavy, traditional thing instead of the lighter, more elastic vests that were introduced - or rather snatched away from the no-mans land that now was a part of the Land of the Rock, along with the Joro clan and their spiders.

"Hey, hi! Haven't seen you like forever!" Nawaki smiled. "That armor looks really cool!"

It was a lie, because while the armor had the color scheme of autumn leaves Chiharu seemed to like so much, it was making her look much less like Chiharu.

"Isn't it?" She grinned back. "It belonged to my aunt, but she grew out of it ages ago!"

"Really? It looks... it doesn't look old!"

"My aunt is just that great at it! Her whole side of the family takes care of them and make new ones!"

That made sense. Since no one else was wearing the armor it made sense that the Akimichi clan took care of making new sets for its members.

"So... watching refugees?" Nawaki asked. It was a much safer topic than poking at the clan business, even if Chiharu felt like sharing. The adults could have other ideas and Nawaki already liked once through Tsunade reprimanding him for being nosy. Repeating that experience was definitely not something he wanted to go through again.

"Yep!" She nodded. "They're carefully screened and all before they enter, but you know. Even a civilians can made a mess when they don't know how to behave.”

"Lots of trouble?" Nawaki asked. Chiharu didn't seem to be too concerned. Quite the opposite - all relaxed and having the time to pretty much exchange gossip.

"Nah," she waved her hand. "They're to afraid of being back on the other side of the wall to do anything. Just a squabble here and there, all petty and stuff."

That sounded about right, so Nawaki nodded sagely. Usually all it was needed was a sight of a hitai-ate for the civilians to calm down.

"My team split to cover more ground, it's easier that way," Chiharu continued. "Well, miss Katsumi is somewhere nearby, but I'm not sure where my teammates are."

"Is miss Katsumi your sensei?"

"Nah, she's a chunin. Our sensei is on a mission, away from Konoha, so someone had to take over. And since she still can make hand signs..."

Nawaki was about to ask what she meant by that, but then he sees the answers.  
There was a woman in a chunin vest leaving the alley and heading towards them. She looked young, was wearing her brown hair short and the cuff of her trousers was tied in a knot just below the knee on the right side. There's nothing below, just an empty space that looked unnatural and made him feel ice-cold all of sudden.

The chunin was moving with an ease despite using crutches, her face calm and she didn't seem to care much about him staring.

"A friend of yours?" she addressed Chiharu.

The girl nodded.

"We were in the same class!" she confirmed. "And senju here was always at the very top!"

That got him another glance, this time a long one.

"You're from that team," she said finally, after looking him up and down.

Nawaki wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad thing. To him it only meant that at this point everyone knew what had happened and had one opinion or another on the topic.  
There was an uncomfortable moment of silence, one that Chiharu wasn't quite understanding, because Nawaki saw her looking back and forth with a confused expression on her face.

"Well," the Chunin finally said. "I was imagining so many things to say I end up without any words to speak."

Her voice is flat and face blank with the exception of slightly raised eyebrows that make her green eyes stick out more, the one feature that was somewhat unique; green eyes were a rare thing.

"Just..." she continued. "Good luck, Senju. To you and your team."

Nawaki blinked and nodded. This time he was the one who couldn't find the right words.

The Chunin - Katsumi - nodded at him and then, with a short movement of her chin ordered Chiharu to continue the patrol.

Nawaki nodded back.

He stood there for a moment, watching as the pair disappeared among the buildings and people and then sighed.  
It was... nice. Nice to know that not everyone was against them, that not everyone was thinking they were wasting time, that someone wished for them to succeed, even if it was just a Chunin missing her leg.

Finally, he decided it was enough of standing in one place.  
He had training tomorrow and before that he needed to do the stretching routine and it was already fairly late.

Maybe he should talk to Orochimaru, he mused, walking back home.   
About Chiharu and her team and if it would be possible to have a friendly sparring with them.

It would be nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The worldbuilding keeps happening to me. I'm trying to not infodump, but sometimes things just sneak up on you.  
> Please, excuse Nawaki for being a little opinionated shit, he doesn't know any better.


	7. Chapter 7: Interruptions And Udon

 

The next day welcomed him with a short note from Tsunade on the table; she was summoned to one of the outpost by the border.

Nawaki sighed heavily and put the kettle on the stove.  
That wasn't the first time and definitely won't be the last. As a healer Tsunade was needed everywhere and all the time and she was let stay home because she needed to be rested if they wanted her to work at to her full capabilities.

There were still left-overs in the ice box - a cupboard with metal places covering the inside of it, with drawers filled with ice - and probably some fruits floating on the cool surface of the small pond on the back of the house.

Idly wondering if he should go shopping tonight or push it back some more, Nawaki made tea and ate his breakfast.  
It wasn't like Tsunade would be home any time soon.

He grimly wondered if it was because Orochimaru was hanging out with her so much and because she was healing his wounds in her free time, but that wouldn't be just too much, wouldn't it?

Another nasty surprise awaited him on the training ground.

"Such a youthful morning!" An unpleasantly familiar voice declared loudly. "Perfect for giving it all!"

He stood there and stared at the man in green, tight suit, who was still screaming. Each time he was standing in a different pose, almost like he was doing some sort of an exercise, but the posing wasn't making any sense.

"Tell me this is just a bad dream."

"It's not," Kiwa had no mercy, but at least she sounded as happy with the situation as he felt. "Sensei got called early in the morning. Someone got poisoned but apparently all the healers in the hospital absolutely sucks."

Right, Nawaki thought. They've missed Tsunade and whoever was in the village was probably not good enough or in the middle of doing something important.

Their own team got treated fast only because Jiraiya just walked in and was loud and powerful enough to demand and it sounded like he and doctor Yakushi knew each other fairly well too.  
Someone else would probably be much less fortunate and end up with a civilian practitioner, med-nin in training or a poison specialist like Orochimaru.

Still.  
Maito Dai again.  
It looked like Orochimaru did have a death wish, because Tsunade promised him a world of pain after the last time. And it was just two days ago!

"It is time to spread your wings!" Maito Dai shouted, completely oblivious to sour mood. "Blossom into greatness, as your youthful sensei ordered!"

"Does that mean we should start the morning exercise?" nawaki asked.

Kiwa shrugged. Susumu looked equally troubled.

"Well, what the hell!" The girl threw her hands up in the air in frustration. "Whatever, lets just do our stuff and ignore the guy!"

It was difficult, because the man was right up their faces the whole time. When they were running, he was running with them, or rather passing them by a few times before they managed to finish the daily rounds.  
When they were doing push ups he was doing that to - on his hands and jumping between them, enthusiastically encouraging them to do more, to do it faster.  
The worst thing, he still appeared to be all fresh as a daisy while they were dripping with sweat.

"What a youthful set of exercises indeed!" Maito Dai straightened up. "Makes you eager to train even more!"

"You think someone would be angry if we strangle this guy?" Kiwa whispered hoarsely.

"Dunno," Nawaki groaned. He was lying on the grass next to her and not feeling like moving. They probably beat some sort of a record when it comes to performing exercises on time. At least he felt like it.

"It would be worth it," Susumu added.

"Now when we've done with starting our glorious day, I have received a set of instructions from your youthful sensei!" Maito Dai grinned brightly. Nawaki could sweat that he picked up a place and angle to do so just to have the sunlight his his teeth just on the right spot because that sparkle wouldn't happen on accident. Unless they guy had a habit of chewing glitter. Nawaki wouldn't be surprised.

"You are going to perform all the ninjutsu you know, one after another!" he declared.

"That," Kiwa blinked slowly. "Sounds easy. Where's the catch?"

Susumu sucked the breath in and Nawaki shared his feelings.

Why she had to ask.

"The catch is... I'm going to interrupt you!" Maito Dai cheerfully explained. "You are all free to use the jutsu in whatever order you want and how many times you want! But once I manage to stop you from casting, the countdown starts again!"

"This... is going to hurt, isn't it?" Nawaki sighed heavily.

Kiwa groaned in agreement.  
But then she furrowed her brow and stood up.

Patting at her shorts to get rid of the dust and dirt - and not being very successful at it - she made a few tentative steps forward.

"Okay. I'm going first," she stated. Or rather demanded.

"What a youthful spirit! I'm in tears!"

"We can see that," Nawaki winced.

"So, you young lads sit back and watch! This is the only chance for that!" Maito grinned and raised a finger. "After ten minutes I want to see you two either sparring or working on your chakra control exercises!"

"What! Wait, we're going to be done with Orochimaru's plan for the day in ten minutes?"

"No! Of course not! Your sensei is as brilliant as youthful!" Maito grinned even brighter. "I just would hate to see you just sitting there and do nothing while one of your teammates tries their hardest!"

"And if we win?" Kiwa questioned.

"Then we do it again, only with all of you working together... and me not giving you any leeway anymore."

"Leeway? Aren't you a genin too?" Nawaki furrowed his brow.

Not only a genin, but the Eternal Genin, a guy everyone was laughing at because he kept on failing easy missions.  
Sure, the guy had crazy stamina, but besides that... if he was any better he would became chunin ages ago!

Maito Dai kept on grinning at them instead of answering the question, so Nawaki just sighed and found a more comfortable position to sit.

"Gonna warn you," Kiwa said quietly, before the training exercise started. "I know fire jutsu."

"Knowing is only half of the jutsu!" Maito Dai replied cheerfully.

That made Kiwa's face narrow dangerously. Nawaki was so, so glad that he wasn't' the one facing the girl.

Maito Dai patiently waited for Kiwa to lean into the Academy stance, good ten meters away from her.

The same moment Susumu clapped his hands, giving the signal to start the duel, Kiwa raised her hands and instantly started to make seals, not giving her opponent the time to get close-  
Only her left hand got suddenly batted away in the middle of the last sign.

She gasped and jumped way, fingers together once more.

Maito whirled around and kicked, leg viciously cutting through the air, raised higher than it should be humanly possible.

Kiwa hit the tree with her back with an "oof!" as the air was pushed out of her lungs.

She curled up on the ground and coughed.

"What... the hell?!" she managed to growl between the gasps.

"I did tell you that I'm going to interrupt!" Maito Dai smiled brilliantly at her. "Up for another try?"

Kiwa furrowed her brow and wiped the drool off her chin.

"You bet your ass I am!"

It took maybe thirty seconds before she hit the ground again.

"I... can see why we are supposed to spar," Susumu said slowly. His eyebrows were almost touching the line of his hair and his eyes were wide open.

"Yeah," Nawaki said weakly. "I can see that too."

Kiwa was stubborn and relentless, getting up again and again, her expression becoming more and more determined with every failure.

"Your spirit is inspiring!"

"Shut it and let's go again!" she demanded.

Maito Dai immediately rushed at her, fist first, only to meet a block of wood.

"Nice!" Nawaki gasped.

Maito immediately followed her, only to meet another block of wood and then another, this time made of a weak, rotten trunk. It  broke apart when the man hit it, raining on him with chunks of wood and splinters and buying enough time for the girl to create a handful of clones.

The man, not discouraged at all, attacked one of them. The didn't even disperse fully when he kicked at another one.

Nawaki bit his lip, looking around, trying to spot the girl.  
She actually had a chance to do this thing this time!

They didn't know many jutsu and she bought herself enough time for another one...

There!

She was crouching in the bushes, hands working fast to create what Nawaki clearly recognized as the Great Fireball.

She was just two signs away from finishing it, when Maito Dai suddenly jumped into the air.

She had no choice but to escape her hiding place with a yelp before his leg hit the place she was crouching a split of a second ago, crushing the twigs and cracking the ground underneath.  
With a curse on her mouth, Kiwa managed to use Kawarimi to get away... only to bump right into her opponent.

Maito grabbed her before she managed to jump away.

"A good try!" he complimented her.

"Still failure," she grunted.

"Do not fret! Beginnings are always the most difficult!" he reassured her.

"You're really good in getting in the way," she mumbled.

"That's the trick," the man smiled brilliantly. "I don't use ninjutsu or genjutsu, so I can't create a shield to hide behind when the enemy attacks. So I've figured, I just have to stop them from attacking, right?"

"Works like a charm," Kiwa admitted. Then looked at him, brow still furrowed. "You don't use ninjutsu?"

"It is a rather peculiar condition!" he sighed heavily. "But or whatever reason I can't use my chakra! It is there, it is strengthening my body! But it's not going to stop me from being the best shinobi I can!"

And then he laughed. Loudly, cheerfully, like all was right in the world and he was at the very top of it.

"I... sort of get why Orochimaru wants us to spend time with this guy," Susumu said quietly.

"What, he gave us an impossible task, so we can try to learn how to make signs even faster?"

Susumu quirked an eyebrow.

"Something like that," he agreed.

They have tried till the evening, but Nawaki wasn't wrong when he called the task impossible - Maito Dai mastered the task of getting in the way and being a nuisance.

"Such a youthful team, I shall congratulate your sensei on having such a splendid genin!"

"Uh, thanks? I guess?" Nawaki awkwardly scratched the back of his head and smiled.

Splendid definitely wasn't how he felt at the moment. Anything but.

"Your enthusiasm is such wondrous my eyes are already watering!" Maito Dai declared loudly. "I feel like we all should head out to the city and fuel our bodies with a healthy meal!"

It... sounded like a proposal, Nawaki decided after a moment of confused blinking.  
And while food sounded really good at the moment he wasn't sure if they should accept. It was one thing to train with the guy because they were ordered to and a completely different one to just... hang out with him.  
Maito Dai had a horrible reputation and was not only easily recognizable but very hard to miss.  
  
They looked at each other.

"You know what?" Kiwa finally crossed hands on her chest. "Why the hell not."

Nawaki was... torn.  
He didn't want to refuse, because it would make Maito Dai sad. Sure, the man was his own kind of mess, but he wasn't a bad person.  
However wouldn't hanging out with a person deemed as a failure by the entire village wouldn't kill what was left of their reputation as a team?

Nawaki bit his lip. He didn't want to be seen as a failure, not only because it was about him, but about Orochimaru too.  
Orochimaru already paid more than anyone else would give up for a group of genin and he kept on giving, no matter how easier it would be for him to just let them go.

"Do not bother yourselves! My youthful day of training is far from over yet!" Maito Dai laughed loudly and then keep on laughing for way too long.

Nawaki winced and he could see Kiwa grimacing too. Susumu was the only one who managed to keep his face straight, but that was a disturbingly stiff face expression, accompanied with a thousand yard stare.  
It was just plain embarrassing and not because people were looking at them, gawking at the source of the noise.

Maito Dai not only managed to notice that they were uncomfortable, he gave them a way out of hanging out with him and he did it with a smile on his face. He was dragged in this mess in the first place, by Orochimaru who needed to quickly change the mood before the unfriendly glares turned into something much more vile and he used this man to do so and and-

And honestly, why the hell not?

They were already there.

Kiwa, the person focused purely on staying alive was okay with it and Nawaki had to admit, it was way better to be seen as an amusing joke than as a drain on the resources.

"Kiwa's right," Nawaki made his decision. "And it's hard to work with an empty stomach!"

"Yeah, I can hear your stomach rumbling despite all the ruckus," Kiwa grumbled.

Maito Dai grinned even further - it shouldn't be humanly possible but there he was - laughed even louder and then dragged them to a supposedly youthful food cart.

The portion size definitely deserved an applause, because the bowl filled with seasonal vegetables and thick, long udon noodles was huge.  
The owner of the cart said that there was some protein paste mixed in with the dough, but it was hard to tell with all the spices added to the soup.

"Shouldn't udon be... more neutral in taste?" Susumu asked weakly after taking a sip of the broth.

"I specialize in curry," the owner, a cheerful, chubby woman admitted without missing a beat and her smile. "But I felt like experimenting a little bit today!"

"It's not bad," Kiwa said with her mouth full. "So, the menu changes often?"

"It all depends on what's available!" came the answer. "Sometimes you just can't get what you want, no matter how hard you're looking for, so instead of making something sub-par I've decided to experiment a bit!"

That was definitely an unique way of running a food cart, Nawaki decided.

He wasn't sure if it was bringing more customers or making them go away, but the woman didn't look like she was worrying about it too much.

There were probably more people like Kiwa, intrigued by the ever changing menu.

"Such a youthful place! Such a clever mind!" Maito Dai voiced his opinion.

"Yes, yes, you charmer!" the owner waved her hand at the man.

Oh, Nawaki thought.

Oh.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maito Dai invited himself to the party and refused to leave.  
> I'm having too much fun with this character.

**Author's Note:**

> I shouldn't be doing this.  
> Not when RL is hell and some and I have like -2 hours of free time, but damn it all.  
> It's my birthday, I'm doing what I want. I'm an adult and like an adult, I throw my common sense and responsibility out of the window and shamelessly indulge myself in yet another new WIP.
> 
> So I'm giving myself a shitton of worldbuilding to toy around with, a time traveler or two hanging around and changing random things around and characters to develop. 
> 
> The rating is higher than my usual stuff purely because I'm letting myself loose when it comes to violence and descriptions of it, as you've already seen :P


End file.
